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COPYRIGHT DEPOSE 



A Jayhawker in Europe 



A 

Jayhawker in Europe 



BY 



W. Y. MORGAN 

Author of "A Journey of a Jayhawker" 




MONOTYPEP ANf» PRINTED BV 

CRANE & COMPANY 

TOPEKA 



Ki 



>^ 



Copyright 1911, 
By Crake & Company 






©CLA303540 



Preface 

These letters were printed in the Hutchin- 
son Daily News during the summer of 1911. 
There was no ulterior motive, no lofty pur- 
pose, just the reporter's idea of telling what 
he saw. 

They are now put in book form without 

revision or editing, because the writer would 

probably make them worse if he tried to make 

them better. 

W. Y. MORGAN. 

Hutchinson, Kansas, November 1, 1911. 



Co tfje fapfjatofeer* 

tofio *tap at Some and take t&dr (European trip* 

in tfictr minus anb in tfte books, tfii0 

toolume is rrgpcctf ulip tir&i' 

cate& by one ot t&e 



Table of Contents 



Page 

New York in the Hot Time, 1 

Breaking Away, 7 

On the Potsdam, 12 

The Lions of the Ship, 18 

Ocean Currents, 25 

The Dutch Folks, 30 

In Old Dordrecht, 37 

The Dutchesses, 44 

The Pilgrims' Start, 50 

Amsterdam, and Others 5Q 

Cheeses and Bulbses, 63 

Historic Letden, 72 

The Dutch Capital, 80 

"The Dutch Company," 88 

The Great River, 96 

Along the Rhine, 104 

In German Towns, 112 

Arriving in Paris, 120 

The French Character 127 

The Latin Quarter, 135 

The Boulevards of Paris, 144 

Some French Ways, 154 

In Dover Town 162 

Old Canterbury Today, 169 

The English Strike 178 

Englishman the Great, 187 

The North of Ireland, 198 

Scotland and the Scotch. 211 

The Land of Burns, 220 

The Journey's End, 228 



A Jayhawker in Europe 

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New York in the Hot Time 

New York, July 10, 1911. 
The last day on American soil before start- 
ing on a trip to other lands should be marked 
with a proper spirit of seriousness, and I would 
certainly live up to the propriety of the oc- 
casion if it were not for two things, — the 
baggage and the weather. But how can a 
man heave a sigh of regret at departing from 
home, when he is chasing over Jersey City and 
Hoboken after a stray trunk, and the ther- 
mometer is breaking records for highness and 
the barometer for humidity? I have known 
some tolerably warm zephyrs from the south 
which were excitedly called "hot winds," but 
they were balmy and pleasant to the touch 
in comparison with the New York hot wave 
which wilts collar, shirt and backbone into 
one mass. The prospect of tomorrow being 

(i) 



£ A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

out on the big water with a sea breeze and a 
northeast course does not seem bad, even if 
you are leaving the Stars and Stripes and 
home and friends. There is nothing like hot, 
humid weather to destroy patriotism, love, 
affection, and common civility. I speak in 
mild terms, but I have returned from Ho- 
boken, the station just the other side of the 
place whose existence is denied by the Uni- 
versalists. This is the place the ship starts 
from, and not from New York, as it is ad- 
vertised to do. 



jimimniiamiimmtt 



Speaking of weather reminds me that the 
West is far ahead of New York in the emanci- 
pation of men. The custom here is for men 
to wear coats regardless of the temperature, 
whereas in the more intelligent West a man is 
considered dressed up in the evening if he 
takes off his gallusses along with his coat. 
Last night we went to a "roof garden" and 
expected that it would be a jolly Bohemian 
affair, but every man sat with his coat on and 
perspired until he couldn't tell whether the 
young ladies of the stage were kicking high 
or not, and worse than that, he did not care. 



NEW YORK IN THE HOT TIME 3 

I have been again impressed with the fact 
that there are no flies in New York City. 
There are no screens on the windows, not 
even of the dining-rooms, and yet I have not 
seen a fly. I wish Dr. Crumbine would tell 
us why it is that flies swarm out in Kansas 
and leave without a friendly visit such a rich 
pasture-ground as they would find on the 
millions of humans on Manhattan island. If 
I were a fly I would leave the swatters and the 
hostile board of health of Kansas, and take 
the limited train for New York and one per- 
petual picnic for myself and family. 



imiwiwiairaiMiit 



This afternoon I went to the ball game, of 
course. Some people would have gone to the 
art exhibit or the beautiful public library. 
But New York and Chicago were to play and 
Matthewson was to pitch, and the call of duty 
prevailed over the artistic yearnings which 
would have taken me elsewhere. Coming 
home from the game I had an idea — which is 
a dangerous thing to do in hot weather. There 
has been a good deal of talk in the newspapers 
about the Republicans not agreeing on a can- 
didate, and the question as to whether Taft 



4 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 



can be reelected or not is being vigorously 
debated. Put 'em all out and nominate 
Christy Matthewson. This would insure the 
electoral vote of New York, for if the Re- 
publicans put "Matty" on the ticket the elec- 
tion returns would be so many millions for 
Matthewson and perhaps a few scattering. 

There were about as many errors and bone- 
heads in the game between Chicago and New 
York as there would be in a Kansas State 
League game, and more than would come to 
pass in the match between the barbers and 
the laundrymen of Hutchinson. The players 
did not indulge in that brilliant repartee with 
the umpire which is a feature of the Kansas 
circuit, and the audience, while expressing its 
opinion of the judgments, had no such wealth 
of phrases as pours over the boxes from the 
grandstand at home. The language used 
could have come from the ministerial alliance, 
and sometimes the game seemed more like a 
moving-picture show than a real live game of 
baseball. Chicago won, 3 to 2 in ten innings, 
and I feel that my European trip is a decided 
success so far. 



NEW YORK IN THE HOT TIME 5 

This morning I took a little walk down Wall 
street and saw the place in which the Great 
Red Dragon lives. These New York bankers 
and brokers are not so dangerous as I have 
been led to believe by reading some of the 
speeches in Congress. There was no blood 
around the Standard Oil building, and the 
office of J. Pierpont was filled with men who 
looked as uncomfortable and unhappy as I 
felt with the heat. Sometimes I think the 
men of Wall street, New York, are just like 
the men at home, — getting all they can under 
the rules of the game and only missing the 
bases when the umpire looks the other way. 
The few with whom I talked were really con- 
cerned about the crops and the welfare of the 
people of Kansas, perhaps because they have 
some of their money invested in our State, and 
I got the idea that Wall street and all it 
represents is interested in the prosperity of 
the country and knows that hard times any- 
where mean corresponding trouble for some 
of them in New York. 



New York is a growing city. In many re- 
spects it is like Hutchinson. The street pav- 



6 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 



ing is full of holes and new buildings are going 
up in every direction. Every few months 
"the highest skyscraper" is erected, and now 
one is being constructed that will have fifty or 
sixty stories — it doesn't matter which. The 
buildings are faced with brick or stone, but 
really built of iron. I saw one today on which 
the bricklaying had been begun at the seventh 
story and was proceeding in both directions. 
That was the interesting feature of the build- 
ing to me. That and the absence of flies and 
the baseball game are the general results of 
my efforts today to see something of the great- 
est city in America. 

We sail tomorrow morning. Then it will 
be ten days on the ship for us. One thing 
about an ocean voyage is reasonably sure: 
If you don't like it you can't get off and walk. 
A really attractive feature is that there is no 
dust and you don't watch the clouds and wish 
it would rain so you will not have to water the 
lawn. 



Breaking Away 

Steamship Potsdam, July 11. 

The sailing of an ocean steamer is always a 
scene of delightful confusion and excitement. 
Thousands of people throng the pier and the 
ship, saying goodbyes to the hundreds who are 
about to leave. The journey across the ocean, 
though no longer a matter of danger or hard- 
ship, is yet enough of an event to start the 
emotions and make the emoters forget every- 
thing but the watery way and the long ab- 
sence. 

The crowd is anxious, expectant, sad, and 
unrestrained. Men who rarely show personal 
feeling look with glistening eyes on the friends 
to be left behind. Women, who are always 
seeing disaster to their loved ones, strive with 
pats, caresses and fond phrases to say the 
consoling words or to express the terror in 
their hearts. The timid girl, off for a year's 
study, wishes she had not been so venture- 
some. The father rubs his eyes and talks 
loudly about the baggage. The mother clings 

(7) 



8 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

to her son's arm and whispers to him how she 
will pray for him every night, and hopes he 
will change his underclothes when the days are 
cool. Young folks hold hands and tell each 
other of the constant remembrance that they 
will have. Big bouquets of flowers are brought 
on by stewards, the trunks go sliding up the 
plank and into the ship, the officers strut up 
and down, conscious of the admiring glances 
of the curious, orders are shouted, sailors go 
about tying and untying ropes, the rich family 
parades on with servants and boxes, the 
whistle blows for the visitors to leave, and the 
final goodbyes and "write me" and "lock the 
back door" and "tell Aunt Mary" and such 
phrases fill the air while handkerchiefs alter- 
nately wipe and wave. 

Slowly the big boat backs into the stream 
amid a fog of cheers and sobs, then goes 
ahead down the harbor, past the pier still 
alive with fluttering handkerchiefs, the voices 
no longer to be heard, and the passengers feel 
that sinking of the heart that comes from the 
knowledge of the separation by time and dis- 
tance coming to them for weeks and months, 
perhaps forever. Sorrowfully they strain for 



BREAKING AWAY 9 

a last look at the crowd, now too far away to 
distinguish the wanted face, and then they 
turn around, look at their watches, and 
wonder how long it will be before lunch. 

Of course the Dutch band played the Star- 
Spangled Banner as the boat trembled and 
started ; of course the last passenger arrived 
just a minute late and was prevented from 
making an effort to jump the twenty feet of 
water which then separated the ship from the 
pier. Of course the boys sold American flags 
and souvenir post cards. Of course the tour- 
ists wondered if they would be seasick and 
their friends rather hoped they would be, 
though they did not say so. The steamboats 
whistled salutes, and the band changed its 
tune to a Dutch version of "The Girl I Left 
Behind Me," and with flags flying the Pots- 
dam moved past the big skyscrapers, past the 
Battery, alongside the Statue of Liberty, and 
out toward the Atlantic like a swan in River- 
side Park. The voyage has begun. The 
traveler has to look after his baggage, which 
is miraculously on board, find his deck chairs 
and his dining-room seats, and between-times 
rush out occasionally to get one more glimpse 



10 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

of the New Jersey coast, which is never very- 
pretty except when you are homeward bound, 
when even Oklahoma would look good. 



miu«iiunc 



This boat, the Potsdam, of the Holland- 
American line, is not one of the big and mag- 
nificent floating hotels which take travelers 
across the Atlantic so rapidly that they do not 
get acquainted with each other and in such 
style that they think they are at a summer 
resort. But it is a good-sized, easy-sailing, 
slow-going ship that will take about ten days 
across and has every comfort which the Dutch 
can think of, and they are long on having 
things comfortable. It has a reputation for 
steadiness and good meals which makes it 
popular with people who have traveled the 
Atlantic and who enjoy the ocean voyage as 
the best part of a trip abroad. It lands at 
Rotterdam, one of the best ports of Europe 
and right in the center of the most interesting 
part of the Old World. 



auwiioBOiiiuiin«i 



The pilot left us at Sandy Hook, and now 
the Potsdam is sailing right out into the big 



BREAKING AWAY 11 

water. A cool breeze has taken the place of 
the hot air of New York. The ocean is 
smooth ; there is neither roll nor heave to the 
ship. Everybody is congratulating himself 
that this is to be a smooth voyage. A sub- 
stantial luncheon is still staying where it be- 
longs, and we are looking over the other pas- 
sengers and being looked over by them. There 
is no chance to get off and go back if we 
wanted to do so. And we don't want to — not 
yet. 



On the Potsdam 

Steamship Potsdam, July 14. 
The daily life on shipboard might be consid- 
ered monotonous if one were being paid for 
it, but under the present circumstances and 
surroundings the time goes rapidly. Every- 
body has noticed that the things he is obliged 
to do are dull and uninteresting. Any ordi- 
nary American would demand about $10 a day 
for fastening himself in a boat and remaining 
there for ten days. He would get tired of 
the society, sick of the meals and sore on his 
job. But call it "fun" and he pays $10 a day 
for the pleasure of the ride. The Potsdam is 
560 feet long, sixty-two feet wide, and seven 
stories high, — four above the water-line and 
three below. On this trip its first-class ac- 
commodations are filled, about 260 people; 
but the second class is not crowded, and less 
than a hundred steerage passengers occupy 
that part of the ship which often carries 2,100 
people. The steerage is crowded on the trip 
to America, filled with men and women who 

C12) 



ON THE POTSDAM 13 

are leaving home and fatherland in order to 
do better for themselves and their children. 
They go back in later years, for a visit, but 
they do not travel in the steerage. They 
carry little American flags and scatter thoughts 
of freedom and free men in the older lands. 



This is a Dutch ship and the language of 
the officers and crew is Dutch. While a few of 
them speak some English and most of them 
know a little, the general effect is that of 
getting into an entirely foreign environment. 
The Dutch language is a peculiar blend. It 
seems to be partly derived from the German, 
partly from the English, and partly from the 
Choctaw. The pronunciation is difficult be- 
cause it is unlike the German, the English 
or the Latin tongues. An ordinary word 
spelled out looks like a freight train of box 
cars with several cabooses. As one of my 
Dutch fellow-passengers said when he was in- 
structing me how to pronounce the name of 
the capital of Holland, " Don't try to say it; 
sneeze it." A great deal of interest is added to 
the smallest bits of conversation by the doubt 
as to whether the Dutch speaker is telling you 



14 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

that it is dinner-time or whether he has 
swallowed his store teeth. 

Which reminds me of a little story Ben 
Nusbaum told me of the Dutchman who came 
into the Oxford cafe, sat up to the counter 
and in proper Dutch etiquette greeted the 
waiter with the salutation, 'Wie gehts?" 
Turning toward the kitchen the waiter sang 
out, "wheat cakes!" "Nein! nein!" shouted 
the Dutchman. "Nine," said the waiter, 
scornfully; "you'll be dam lucky if you get 
three!" 



jiniimiinnwiiiiiLmt 



The principal occupation on board a Dutch 
ship is eating, and the next most important 
is drinking. The eats begin with a hearty 
breakfast from 8 to 10 o'clock. At 11 o'clock, 
beef soup, sandwiches and crackers. At 12 : 30, 
an elaborate luncheon. At 4 o'clock, afternoon 
tea, with sandwiches and fancy cakes. At 7 
o'clock, a great dinner. At 9 o'clock, coffee, 
sandwiches, etc. Any time between these 
meals you can get something to eat, anything 
from beef to buns, and the table in the smok- 
ing-room is always loaded with cheese, sau- 
sage, ham, cakes and all the little knick-knacks 



ON THE POTSDAM 15 

that tempt you to take one as you go by. 
And yet there is surprise that some people 
are seasick. 

You can get anything you want to drink 
except water, which is scarce, and apparently 
only used for scrubbing and bathing. Of 
course the steward will find you a little water, 
if you are from Kansas, but he thinks you are 
sick, wants to add a hot-water bag, and sug- 
gests that the ship doctor might help you 
some. 



I have spoken before of the Dutch band. 
It is a good one, and loves to play. The first 
concert is at 10 in the morning. There is 
orchestra music during luncheon and dinner, 
and band concerts afternoon and evening. I 
like a German band, or a Dutch band, so long 
as it sticks to its proper repertoire. But there 
never was a German band that could play 
"My Old Kentucky Home" and "Swanee 
River," and every German band persists in 
doing so in honor of the Americans. I sup- 
pose this desire to do something you can't do 
is not confined to Dutch musicians. I know 
a man who can whistle like a bird, but he in- 



16 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

sists that he is a violinist, and plays second 
fiddle. I know a singer with a really great 
voice who persists in the theory that he can 
recite, which he can't. Therefore he is a 
great bore, and nobody thinks he can even 
sing. Nearly all of us are afflicted some along 
this line, and the Dutch band on the Potsdam 
is merely accenting the characteristic in brass. 



jiHinttraiaiiiiitnifnt 



Today I saw a whale. Every time I am on 
the ocean I see a whale. At first nobody else 
could see it, but soon a large number could. 
There was a good deal of excitement, and the 
passengers divided into two factions, those 
who saw the whale and those who didn't and 
who evidently thought we didn't. The argu- 
ment lasted nearly all the morning, and would 
be going on yet if a ship had not appeared in 
the distance, and our passengers divided 
promptly as to whether it was a Cunarder, a 
French liner, or a Norwegian tramp freighter. 
This discussion will take our valuable time all 
the afternoon. Friends will become enemies, 
and some of those who rallied around the whale 
story are almost glaring at each other over 
the nationality of that distant vessel. I am 



ON THE POTSDAM 17 

trying to keep out of this debate, as I am 
something of a Hero because I saw the whale. 
I have already told of my nautical experience 
on Cow creek, so while I feel I would be con- 
sidered an authority, it is better to let some 
of the other ambitious travelers get a reputa- 
tion. 



The Lions of the Ship 

Steamship Potsdam, July 19. 
There are always "lions" on a ship, not the 
kind that roar and shake their manes, but 
those the other passengers point at and after- 
ward recall with pride. I often speak care- 
lessly of the time I crossed with Willie Vander- 
gould, although he never left his room during 
the voyage and was probably sleeping off the 
effects of a long spree. Once I was a fellow- 
passenger with Julia Marlowe, a fact Julia 
never seemed to recognize. There are always 
a few counts and capitalists on an ocean 
steamer, and a ship without a lion is un- 
fortunate. Our largest and finest specimen is 
Booth Tarkington, the head of the Indiana 
school of fiction, an author whose books have 
brought him fame and money, and a play- 
wright whose dramatizations have won suc- 
cess. He is the tamest lion I ever crossed with. 
He is delightfully democratic, not a bit chesty, 
but rather modest, and as friendly to a travel- 
ing Jayhawker as he is to the distinguished 

(18) 



THE LIONS OF THE SHIP 19 

members of the company. In fact, he under- 
stands and speaks the Kansas language like 
a native. His ideal of life is to have a home 
on an island in the track of the ocean steamers 
so he can sit on the porch and watch the ships 
come and go. Not for me. It is too much 
like living in a Kansas town where No. 3 and 
No. 4 do not stop, and every day the loco- 
motives snort and go by without even hesitat- 
ing. 



lu.imimraiiiiiiiiui: 



Tarkington is an honest man, so he says, 
and he tells good sea stories. His favorite 
true story is of Toboga Bill, a big shark which 
followed ships up and down the South-Ameri- 
can coast, foraging off the scraps the cooks 
threw overboard. Tarkington's friend, Cap- 
tain Harvey, got to noticing that on every trip 
his boat was escorted by Toboga Bill, whose 
bald spot on top and a wart on the nose made 
him easily recognizable. Harvey got to feed- 
ing him regularly with the spoiled meat and 
vegetables, and Toboga Bill would come to the 
surface, flop his fin at the captain and thank 
him as plainly as a shark could do. After 
several years of this mutual acquaintance the 



20 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

captain happened to be in a small-boat going 
out to his ship at a Central- American port. 
The boat upset, and the captain and sailors 
were immediately surrounded by a herd of 
man-eating sharks. The shore was a mile 
away and the captain swam that distance, the 
only one who escaped; and all the way he 
could see Toboga Bill with his fin standing up 
straight, keeping the other sharks from his 
old friend. Occasionally Toboga would give 
the captain a gentle shove, and finally pushed 
him onto the beach. 

This story Tarkington admitted sounded 
like a fish story, but he has a motor-boat 
named Toboga Bill, which verifies the tale. 



That reminded me of a Kansas fish story 
which I introduced to the audience. Every- 
body in Kansas knows of the herd of hornless 
catfish which has been bred near the Bower- 
sock dam at Lawrence. Some years ago Mr. 
Bowersock, who owns the dam that furnishes 
power for the mill and other factories, con- 
ceived the idea that big Kaw river catfish 
going through the mill-race and onto the water- 
wheel added much to the power generated. 



THE LIONS OF THE SHIP 21 

Then he read that fish are very sensitive to 
music. So he hired a man with an accordion 
to stand over the mill-race and play. The 
catfish came from up and down stream to 
hear the music, and almost inevitably drifted 
through the race, onto the wheel, and in- 
creased the power. The fishes' horns used to 
get entangled in the wheel and injure the fish ; 
so Mr. Bowersock, who is a kind-hearted man 
and very persistent, had a lot of the fish caught 
and dehorned, and in a year or two he had a 
large herd of hornless catfish. These fish not 
only turn out to hear the music, but they have 
learned to enjoy the trip through the mill- 
race and over the wheel, so that every Sunday 
or oftener whole families of catfish — and they 
have large families — come to Bowersock's dam 
to shoot the chutes something as people go 
out to ride on the scenic railway. Whenever 
the water in the river gets low Mr. Bowersock 
has the band play : the catfish gather and go 
round and round over the wheel, furnishing 
power for the Bowersock mill when every 
other wheel on the river is idle from lack of 
water. 

There were some skeptical folks who heard 



22 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

my simple story and affected to disbelieve. 
But I assured them that it could be easily 
proven, and if they would go to Lawrence I 
would show them the Bowersock dam and the 
catfish. It is always a good idea to have the 
proofs for a fish story. 



juimiiuioimimnji 



The next "lion" on board is Gov. Fook, 
returning from the Dutch West Indies, where 
he has been governing the islands and Dutch 
Guiana. The governor is a well-informed 
gentleman, and a splendid player of pinochle. 
The Dutch have the thrifty habit of making 
their colonies pay. They are not a "world 
power" and do not have to be experimenting 
with efforts to lift the white man's burden. 
Their idea is that the West-Indian and the 
East-Indian who live under the Dutch flag 
shall work. The American idea is to educate 
and convert the heathen and pension them 
from labor. Our theory sounds all right, but 
it results in unhappy Filipinos and increased 
expense for Americans. The Dutch colonials 
pay their way whether they get an education 
or not. 



THE LIONS OF THE SHIP 23 

One unfamiliar with modern steamship 
travel would think that the captain and his 
first and second officers were the important 
officials on board. They are not. The officers 
rank about as follows : 1st, the cook ; 2nd, 
the engineer ; 3rd, the barber, and after that 
the rest. The cook on an ocean steamer gets 
more pay than the captain, and is now ranked 
as an officer. The managing director of a big 
German company was accustomed on visiting 
any ship of their line, to first shake hands with 
the cook and then with the captain. When 
one of the officers suggested that he was not 
following etiquette he answered that there 
was no trouble getting captains and lieuten- 
ants but it was a darned hard job to find a 
cook. The cook has to buy, plan meals, 
supervise the kitchen and run it economically 
for the company and satisfactorily for the 
passengers, for over 2,000 people. 

The barber is the man on the ship who 
knows everything for sure. Ask the captain 
when we will get to Rotterdam and he will 
qualify and trim his answer by referring to 
possible winds and tides, and he won't say 
exactly. Ask the barber and he will tell you 



24 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

we will get there at 10 o'clock on Friday 
night. He knows everything going on in the 
boat, from the kind of freight carried in the 
hold to the meaning of the colors painted on 
the smokestack. During this voyage I have 
had more numerous and interesting facts than 
anybody, because I have not fooled with talk- 
ing to the captain or the purser or the steward, 
but gotten my information straight from the 
fountain of knowledge, the barber shop. How- 
ever, this is not peculiar to ships. The same 
principle applies at Hutchinson and every 
other town. 



Ocean Currents 

Steamship Potsdam, July 21. 
This is the eleventh day of the voyage from 
New York, and if the Potsdam does not have 
a puncture or bust a singletree she will ar- 
rive at Rotterdam late tonight. The Pots- 
dam is a most comfortable boat, but it is 
in no hurry. It keeps below the Hutchin- 
son speed limit of fifteen miles an hour. 
But a steamship never stops for water or oil, 
or to sidetrack or to wait for connections. 
This steady pounding of fourteen miles an 
hour makes an easy speed for the passenger, 
and the verdict of this ship's company is that 
the Potsdam is a bully ship and the captain 
and the cook are all right. 



imiitiiimcmuions 



Nearly all the way across the Atlantic we 
have been in the Gulf stream. I have read 
of this phenomenal current which originates 
in the Gulf of Mexico and comes up the east- 
ern coast of the United States so warm that 
it affects the climate wherever it touches. 

(25) 



26 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

Then nearly opposite New England it turns 
and crosses the Atlantic, a river of warm 
water many miles wide, flowing through the 
ocean, which is comparatively cold. This 
stream is a help to the boats going in its direc- 
tion, although it has the bad feature of fre- 
quent fogs caused by the condensation which 
comes when the warm and cold air currents 
meet. The Gulf stream is believed to be re- 
sponsible for the green of Ireland and for 
the winter resorts of southern England. It 
goes all the way across the Atlantic and into 
the English Channel, with a branch off to 
Ireland. What causes the Gulf stream? I 
forget the scientific terms, but this is the way 
it is, according to my friend Mr. Vischer, 
formerly of the German navy. The water 
in the Gulf of Mexico is naturally warm. 
The motion of the earth, from west to east, 
and other currents coming into the gulf, 
crowd the warm water out and send the big 
wide stream into the Atlantic with a whirl 
which starts it in a northerly and easterly 
direction. The same Providence that makes 
the grass grow makes the course of the cur- 
rent, and it flows for thousands of miles, 



OCEAN CURRENTS 27 

gradually dissipating at the edges, but still 
a warm-water river until it breaks on the 
coast of the British Isles and into the North 
Sea. Perhaps Mr. Vischer would not recog- 
nize this explanation, but I have translated 
it into a vernacular which I can understand. 



iiimiiwuuiuuiiiiiiic 



The Gulf stream reminds me of the Medi- 
terranean. Not having much else to worry 
about, I have gone to worrying over the Medi- 
terranean Sea. The ocean always flows into 
the sea. The current through the strait of 
Gibraltar is always inward. Many great 
rivers contribute to the blue waters of the 
great sea. There is no known outlet. Why 
does not the Mediterranean run over and fill 
the Sahara desert, which is considerably be- 
low the sea-level? Scientists have tried to 
figure this out, and the only tangible theory 
is that the bottom of the Mediterranean leaks 
badly in some places, and that the water finds 
its way by subterranean channels back to 
the ocean. What would happen if an erup- 
tion of Vesuvius should stop up the drain- 
pipe? Now worry. 



28 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

Tonight we saw another phenomenon, the 
aurora borealis. It looked to me like a beau- 
tiful sunset in the north. We are sailing in 
the North Sea along the coast of Belgium, 
and the water reaches northward to the pole. 
The aurora borealis is another phenomenon 
not easily explained, but Mr. Vischer says it 
is probably the reflection of the sun from the 
ice mirror of the Arctic. And it does make you 
feel peculiar to see what is apparently the 
light of the sunset flare up toward the "Dip- 
per" and the North Star. 



luimuiiBiiuiiiiiira 



Some of our passengers disembarked today 
at Boulogne. This was the first time the 
Potsdam had paused since she left New York 
a week ago last Tuesday. This was the stop 
for the passengers who go direct to Paris. 
The Dutch who are homeward bound and 
those of us who think it best to fool around 
a little before encountering the dangers of 
Paris, continue to Rotterdam. We should be 
spending the evening with maps and guide 
books preparing ourselves for the art galleries, 
cathedrals, canals and windmills. As a mat- 
ter of fact, we are wondering what is going 



OCEAN CURRENTS 29 

on at home. There is a balance-wheel in 
the human heart that makes the ordinary 
citizen who is far afield or afloat turn to the 
thoughts of the home which he left, seeking a 
change. 



ammiuiniiwmit 



A smoking-room story : An American in 
a European art gallery was heading an aggre- 
gation of family and friends for a study of 
art. His assurance was more pronounced 
than his knowledge. "See this beautiful 
Titian," he said. "What glorious color, and 
mark the beauty of the small lines. Isn't 
it a jim dandy? And next to it is a Rubens 
by the same artist!" 



The Dutch Folks 

Rotterdam, Holland, July 23. 

It seemed to me unnecessary, but I had to 
explain to some friends why I was going 
especially to Holland. It is the biggest little 
country in the world. In art it rivals Italy, 
in business it competes with England, his- 
torically it has had more thrills to the mile 
than France, and in appearance it is the 
oddest, queerest, and most different from our 
own country, of all the nations of central 
Europe. Holland gives you more for your 
money and your time than any other, and 
that's why I am back here to renew the hur- 
ried acquaintance with the Dutch made a 
few years ago. 

Landing in Rotterdam was an experiment. 
The guide books and the tourist authorities 
pass Rotterdam over with brief mention. 
Baedeker, the tripper's friend, suggests that 
you can see Rotterdam in a half-day. That 
is because Rotterdam is short on picture gal- 
leries and cathedrals. It is a great, busy 

(30) 



THE DUTCH FOLKS 31 

city of a half-million people, and one of the 
most active commercially in the world. It 
is the port where the boats from the Rhine 
meet the ships of the sea. It is the greatest 
freight shipping and receiving port of north- 
ern Europe. It is the com ng city of the 
north, because of its natural advantages in 
cheap freight rates. After looking it over 
hurriedly it seems to me to be one of the most 
interesting of cities. I am not going to run 
away from cathedrals and galleries. I am 
not intending to dodge when I see a beauti- 
ful landscape coming. But I have done my 
duty in the past and have seen the great 
cathedrals and the exhibitions of art. No 
one can come to Europe and not see these 
things once, for if he did he would not be 
able to lift up his head in the presence of 
other travelers. But he does not have to do 
them a second time. If I want to see pic- 
tures of Dutch ladies labeled "Madonna," 
I will see them. If I don't want to, I do not 
have to. In other words, if I go to the "tour- 
ist delights" it will be my own fault. 

I would rather see the people themselves 
than the pictures of them. I want to observe 



32 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

how they work, what they work for, what 
their prospects are, and wherein they differ 
from the great Americans. 



smjjfMfflDiiimujfiiT 



Man made most of Holland. Nearly all 
of the country is below the level of the sea, 
much of it many feet below. All that keeps 
the tide of the North Sea from flooding the 
country with from ten to a hundred feet of 
water every day are the dikes which man has 
built. Behind these huge embankments lies 
a country as flat as the flattest prairie in Kan- 
sas. A few sandhills and an occasional little 
rise of ground might stick out of the water 
if the dikes broke, but I doubt it. This 
"made" land has been fertilized and built 
up by the silt of the rivers, added to by the 
labor and science of man, until it is a vast 
market garden. The water of the rivers is 
diverted in every direction into canals. There 
is no current to the rivers ; the surface is too 
flat, and the fresh water is backed up twice 
a day by the ocean tides at the mouths. 
There are practically no locks and the move- 
ment of the water is hardly perceptible, ex- 
cept near the coast, where it responds to the 



THE DUTCH FOLKS 33 

advance and retreat of the sea. These canals 
are an absolute necessity for drainage, other- 
wise the country would be a swamp. Then 
they are used as roads, and practically all the 
freight is carried to market cheaply in canal- 
boats. The canals also serve as fences. The 
drainage water is pumped by windmills, which 
are then used to furnish power for every 
imaginable manufacturing purpose, from saw- 
ing lumber to grinding wheat. The cheap 
wind-power enabled the people to clear the 
land of water. So you see why there are 
dikes, canals and windmills in Holland : be- 
cause they were the only available instru- 
ments in the hand of man to beat back the 
sea and build a productive soi 1 . They were 
not inserted in the Holland landscape for 
beauty or for art's sake, but because they 
were necessities ; and yet great artists come 
to Holland to paint pictures of these practical 
things, and when they want to add more 
beauty they insert Dutch cattle and wooden 
shoes. All of which shows that the plain 
everyday things around us are really pic- 
turesque ; and they are, whether you look at 



34 A JATHAWKER IN EUROPE 

the sandhills along the Arkansas or the dunes 
along the North Sea. 



imuiiiimiunimDiiit 



In this little country, containing 12,500 
square miles of land and water, smaller than 
the Seventh congressional district of Kansas, 
live almost 6,000,000 of the busiest people 
on earth. Their character may be drawn 
from their history. They first beat the ocean 
out of the arena and then made the soil. 
They met and overcame more obstacles than 
any other people in getting their land. And 
then for several centuries they had to fight 
all the rest of Europe to keep from being ab- 
sorbed by one or the other of the great powers. 
They drove out the Spaniards at a time when 
Spain was considered invincible. They licked 
England on the sea, and the Dutch Admiral 
Tromp sailed up and down the Channel with 
a broom at the mast of his ship. They drove 
Napoleon's soldiers and his king out of the 
country. They never willingly knuckled down 
to anybody, and they never stayed down long 
when they were hit. 

The Dutch have for centuries been con- 
sidered the best traders in Europe. They 



THE DUTCH FOLKS 35 

have the ports for commerce and they have 
the money. They own 700,000 square miles 
of colonies, with a population six times as 
large as their own. From the beginning they 
have been ruled by merchants and business 
men, rather than by kings and princes, by 
men who knew how to buy and sell and fight. 
They have been saving and thrifty, and can 
dig up more cash than any other bunch of in- 
habitants on the globe. They have sunk 
some money in American railroads, but they 
have made it back, and they always take in- 
terest. Market-gardening and manufactur- 
ing and trade have been their resources, and 
nothing can beat that three of a kind for 
piling up profits and providing a way to keep 
the money w T orking. 

Of course these characteristics and this en- 
vironment have made the Dutch peculiar in 
some ways, and they are generally counted 
a little close or "near." They habitually use 
their small coin, the value of two-fifths of an 
American cent, and they want and give all 
that is coming. They have good horses, fat 
stomachs, and lots of children. They are 
pleasant but not effusive, and they are as 



36 A JATHAWKER IN EUROPE 

proud of their country as are the inhabitants 
of any place on earth. They believe in every- 
body working, including the women and the 
dogs. Their struggle with the sea never ends, 
and they follow the same persistent course in 
every line of development. They are so clean 
it is a wonder they are comfortable, and they 
believe in eating and drinking and having a 
good time, just so it doesn't cost too much. 
They are a great people, and here's looking 
at them. 



In Old Dordrecht 

Dordrecht, July 23. 
This is the oldest town in Holland, and once 
upon a time was the great commercial city. 
It is about fifteen miles from Rotterdam, and 
remember that fifteen miles is a long distance 
in this country. It is built upon an island; 
two rivers and any number of canals run 
around it and through it whenever the tide 
ebbs or flows. Good-sized ocean steamers 
come to its wharves, and until other cities 
developed deeper harbors Dordrecht was the 
Hutchinson of southwest Holland. And now 
let me explain that the people of this country 
do not call it Holland, but The Netherland. 
Originally Holland was the western part of 
the present Netherland. Dordrecht is in old 
South Holland. About nine hundred years 
ago the Count of Holland, who then ruled in 
this precinct, decided to levy a tax or a tariff 
on all goods shipped on this route, the main 
traveled road from England to the Orient. 
The other counts and kings and bishops 

(37) 



88 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

kicked, but after a fight the right of the Count 
of Holland was vindicated, and he built the 
city of Dordrecht as a sort of customs house. 
This was in 1008. For several hundred years 
Dordrecht prospered and was known as a 
great commercial city. Then Antwerp, Rot- 
terdam and Amsterdam came forward with 
better harbors, and Dordrecht took a back 
seat. But it has always been one of the im- 
portant places in The Netherland. When 
William of Orange took hold of the revolution 
against Spain, the first conference of the repre- 
sentatives of the Dutch states was held in 
Dordrecht, and it was always loyal to the 
cause of Dutch freedom. The best hotel and 
restaurant in the city today is The Orange, 
named for the royal house which has so long 
been at the head of the Dutch government. 
My idea of a really important statesman is 
one for whom hotels and cigars are named 
centuries after he has passed away. 



UMiiuiunii.'iuiiiini 



This is Sunday, and I am forced to believe 
that the Dutch are not good churchgoers. We 
went to the evening service in the great cathe- 
dral. In fact, we went to the cathedral and 



IN OLD DORDRECHT 39 

suddenly the service began without our hav- 
ing time to retire gracefully. So we decided 
to stay, and in a prominent place was a list 
of the prices of seats. Some cost ten cents, 
some five cents, and some were marked free. 
I handed ten cents to the lady in charge, and 
we took two seats in the rear, which I after- 
ward discovered were free. The women seem 
to run the church much as they do at home. 
The Dutch hymns were not so bad, but the 
Dutch sermon was not interesting to me. 
During the closing song, we thought we would 
slip out quietly, but when we reached the door 
we found it locked. The custom is to lock 
the door and allow no one to enter or leave 
during the service, but as a special favor to 
Americans, who evidently did not know what 
they were doing, the guardian of the door un- 
locked it, and out we went amid general 
interest of the congregation. 



We came from Rotterdam on a little steam- 
boat, which scooted along the rivers and canals 
like a street car. Very often the canal was 
built higher than the adjoining land, and it 
gave the peculiar feeling of boating in the air. 



40 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

There is no waste ground. Every foot of it 
not occupied by a house or a chicken-yard, is 
pasture or under cultivation. Every farmer 
has a herd of those black-and-white cattle. 
Some of the herds are as many as six or seven 
cows. But every cow acted as if she were 
doing her full duty toward making Holland 
the wealthiest of nations. 



liiuiiiniiiniuiimmii 



The streets of Dordrecht are generally nar- 
row, like those of all old towns. Many of the 
buildings are very old, and a favorite style of 
architecture is to have the front project several 
feet forward over the street. The tops of 
opposite buildings often almost meet. I don't 
see why they do not meet and come down 
kerwhack, but they don't. Imagine these 
quaint streets with old Dutch houses, white 
and blue, with red tiled roofs, and green and 
yellow thrown in to give them color, with 
angles and dormers and curious corners, the 
tops projecting toward one another, and you 
can see how interesting a Dutch street can 
be if it tries, as it does in Dordrecht. Of course 
in the outer and newer parts of the town are 
larger streets and more modern houses, with 




THE SCRUBBING-BRUSH THE NATIONAL EMBLEM OF HOLLAND 



IN OLD DORDRECHT 41 

beautiful gardens and flower-beds that would 
baffle a painter for color, but old Dordrecht 
is the most interesting. Add to the street 
picture a canal down the middle, and you get 
a frequent variation. Put odd Dutch boats in 
the water, fill them with freight and children, 
and you have another. If this were not 
picturesque it would be grotesque to American 
eyes, but it is the actual development of Dutch 
civilization, and it is the thing you pay money 
for when some artist catches the inspiration 
which he can get here if anywhere. 



simiiiuiuiiHJumirt 



Of course the streets are paved, and they 
are as clean as the floor of an ordinary Ameri- 
can dwelling. Everyone knows that the 
Dutch are clean and that their national em- 
blem ought to be a scrubbing-brush. They 
are so clean that it almost hurts. Very often 
there are no sidewalks, and when there are 
they are not level, and are generally fenced in. 
They belong to the abutting property, and 
are not to be walked on by the public. The 
people walk in the street, and that custom is 
a little hard to get used to. Before the front 
window of nearly every house is a mirror, so 



42 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

fastened that those within the house can see 
up and down the street, observe who is com- 
ing and who is going, and where. This cus- 
tom, if introduced at home, would save a good 
deal of neck-stretching. But at first one is 
overly conscious of the many eyes which .are 
observing his walk and the many minds which 
are undoubtedly trying to guess just where 
and why and who. But this mirror custom 
does not bother the Dutch young folks, not 
much. It is also the custom for the young 
man and his sweetheart to parade along the 
street hand in hand, arm in arm, or catch-as- 
catch-can, if they want to, — and they want to 
a great deal. At first this looked like a rude 
demonstration of affection, but after you have 
observed it some, say for an hour or so, it 
doesn't seem half bad, — if you were only 
Dutch. 



miumniiniiuiptmui 



Dordrecht has about 40,000 people, and all 
of them are on the street or at the window on 
Sunday. The saloons are open, but nothing 
is sold stronger than gin. The Dutch in a 
quiet, gentlemanly and ladylike way, are evi- 
dently trying to consume all the beer that can 



IN OLD DORDRECHT 43 

be made in Holland or imported. Of course 
they can't succeed, but, as the story goes, they 
can probably make the breweries work nights. 
There is really a need for a temperance organ- 
ization in this country, and I should say it 
would have work enough to last it several 
thousand years. 



The Dutchesses 

Rotterdam, July 24. 
The secret of the success of the Dutch is no 
secret at all. Everybody works, not except- 
ing father, grandfather and grandmother. I 
suppose this habit began with the unceasing 
fight against the sea, the building of the dikes, 
the pumping out of the water, and the con- 
struction of a soil. It has continued until 
there is no other people more persistently in- 
dustrious. They rise early and get busy. 
The women cook and scrub and work on the 
canal-boats, in the shops and in the fields. 
The children go to school eleven months in 
the year. The men are stout, quick, and work 
from early to late. Even the dogs work in 
Holland. At first it seemed rather hard to 
see the dogs hitched to the little carts and 
pulling heavy loads, sometimes a man riding 
on the cart. This is a serious country for 
the canine, and must be the place where the 
phrase "worked like a dog" got its start. In 
most places the dog is the companion and pet 

(44) 



THE DUTCHESSES 45 

of man, but in Holland he has to do his part 
in making a living, and he soon learns to draw 
the load, pulling hard and conscientiously on 
the traces. He has little time to fight and 
frolic, but he has the great pleasure of the rest 
that comes from hard labor. However, if I 
were a dog and were picking out a country for 
a location, I would stay far away from Hol- 
land. It is no uncommon sight to see a 
woman with a strap over her shoulders drag- 
ging a canal-boat or pulling a little wagon. 
In fact, the women of The Netherland have 
rights which they are not even asking in the 
United States, and no one disputes their 
prerogative of hard work. There are no " Suf- 
fragettes" in Holland, but a woman can do 
nearly anything she wants to unless it is 
vote, which she apparently does not care for. 
There are many rich Hollanders ; in fact, there 
are few that are poor. But they do not con- 
stitute a leisure class. The wealthy Dutch 
gent merely works the harder and the wealthy 
Dutch "vrouw" scrubs and manages the 
household or runs the store just as she did in 
the earlier years of struggle. 



46 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

Speaking of the Dutch women, I think they 
are good-looking. They are almost invari- 
ably strong and well in appearance, with good 
complexions, clever eyes and capable expres- 
sion. They may weigh a little strong for some, 
but that is a matter of taste. The old Dutch 
peasant costumes are still worn in places, but 
as a rule their clothes come from the same 
models as those for the American women. 
The Dutchess has been reared to work, to 
manage, and to advise with her man. She is 
intelligent in appearance and quick in action. 
She is educated and companionable. What 
if her waist line disappears ? What if she has 
no ankles, only feet and legs? Perhaps it 
will be thought that I am going too far in my 
investigation, but the Dutch ladies ride bi- 
cycles so generally that even a man from 
America can see a few things, no matter how 
hard he tries to look the other way and comes 
near getting run over. 



jtiiMutmaiimnnn 



The Queen of Holland is a woman. This is 
not a startling statement, for so far as I know 
a man has never been a queen in any country. 
But there is no king. Queen Wilhelmina's 



THE DUTCHESSES 47 

husband, Prince Henry, is not a king. If 
there is any ruling to do in Holland it is done 
by Wilhelmina. Henry can't even appoint a 
notary public. No one pays any attention to 
him, and I understand Wilhelmina has given 
it out that what Henry says does not go with 
her. I am trying to investigate the status of 
affairs in the royal family, because I had 
entertained the idea that Wilhelmina was an 
unfortunate young queen with a bad husband. 
That may have been so a few years ago, but 
now I understand she bats poor Henry around 
scandalously, pays no heed to his wishes, and 
pointedly calls his attention about three times 
a day to the fact that he is nothing but a one- 
horse prince while she is the boss of the family 
and the kingdom. This pleases the Dutch 
immensely, for Henry is a German and the 
Dutch don't like the Germans. They think 
the Germans are conceited and arrogant, and 
that Emperor W T illiam is planning to event- 
ually annex The Netherland to Germany. So 
every time Wilhelmina turns down the Ger- 
man prince all the Dutch people think it is 
fine, and her popularity is immense. Henry 
gets a good salary, but his job would be a hard 



48 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

one for a self-respecting American. I under- 
stand he is much dissatisfied, but he was not 
raised to a trade, and if Wilhelmina should 
stop his pay he would go hungry and thirsty, 
two conditions which would make life intoler- 
able for a German prince. 



iniiniioiiimniui 



Wilhelmina has a daughter, two years old, 
named Juliana. I suppose Henry is related to 
Juliana, but he gets no credit for it. Every- 
where you go you see pictures of Wilhelmina 
and Juliana, but not of Henry. A princess 
is really what the Dutch want, for their mon- 
arch has actually no power, and the govern- 
ment is entirely managed by the representa- 
tives of the people. But a prince would likely 
be wild, and might want to mix into public 
affairs. A princess makes a better figurehead 
of the state. She will be satisfied with a new 
dress and a hand-decorated crown, and not be 
wanting an army and battleships as a prince 
might do. Wilhelmina represents to the Dutch 
people the ruling family of Orange, which 
brought them through many crises, and 
Juliana is another Orange. Henry is only a 
lemon which the Germans handed to them. 



THE DUTCHESSES 49 

The royal family are off on a visit to Brussels, 
and I have not met any of them. This in- 
formation I have gleaned from the hotel 
porters, the boat captains, the chambermaids, 
and the clerks who speak English. I imagine 
I have come nearer getting the facts than if I 
had sent in my card at the royal palace. 



The Pilgrims' Start 

Delftshaven, July 25. 
This is the town from which the Pilgrims 
sailed on the trip which was to make Ply- 
mouth Rock famous. Nearly a hundred of 
the congregation of Rev. John Robinson at 
Leyden came to this little suburb of Rotter- 
dam, and embarked on the Speedwell. The 
night before the start was spent by the con- 
gregation in exhortation and prayer in a little 
church which still stands, and has the fact 
recorded on a big tablet. The Pilgrims went 
to Southampton, discovered the Speedwell 
was not seaworthy, and transferred to the 
Mayflower. 



minimum miinaire 



Those English Puritans who had emigrated 
from their own country to Holland were con- 
sidered "religious cranks" even in those days 
when fighting and killing for religion was re- 
garded the proper occupation of a Christian. 
The Puritans in England were strong in num- 
bers, and while Queen Elizabeth had frowned 

(50) 



THE PILGRIMS' START 51 

upon them as dissenters from the church of 
which she was the head, she was politician 
enough to restrain the persecution of them, for 
they were useful citizens and loved to die fight- 
ing Spaniards. But a few extremists who per- 
sisted in preaching in public places were 
sentenced to jail, and some of these skipped 
to Holland. Queen Elizabeth died and James 
became king of England, and he was a pin- 
head. He hated non-conformists as much as 
Catholics. So, more of the Puritans who 
could not pretend to conform went to Holland, 
and in Leyden and Amsterdam they founded 
little settlements. Holland was a land of 
liberty, and the Puritans wanted the right to 
disagree, non-conform, argue and debate over 
disputed questions. There were several con- 
gregations of them, and they did not agree 
on important doctrines, such as whether John 
the Baptist's hair was parted on the side or 
in the middle. Public debates were held and 
great enjoyment therefrom resulted, although 
there is no record of anyone having his opinion 
changed by the arguments, and the side whose 
story you are reading always overcame the 
other. 



52 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

The Puritans did not mix much with the 
Dutch, and naturally grew lonesome in their 
exile. They conceived the plan of emigrat- 
ing to the New World and there establishing 
the right to worship God in accord with their 
own conscience. Influential Puritans in Eng- 
land who had not been so cranky as to leave 
home, helped with the king, and finally they 
secured permission from James to settle in 
America and to own the land they should 
develop. James remarked at the time he 
would prefer that they go to Hell, where they 
belonged, but he was needing a loan from the 
English Puritans, so he gave the permit. The 
Puritans in old England also provided a good 
part of the money with which to fit out the 
expedition. At the time there was a general 
movement among the Puritans in England 
for a big migration to the New World. This 
was to be a sort of experiment station. Ah the 
time, James was king, and Charles, a dissolute 
prince, was to follow. The Puritans were sick 
at heart and ready to leave their native land. 
But soon after the Pilgrims had made their 
settlement in New England, the Puritans at 
home developed leaders who put them into 



THE PILGRIMS* START 53 

the fight for Old England. Then along came 
Cromwell, and for many years English Puri- 
tans were running the government, and the 
necessity for a safe place across the sea and an 
asylum for religious liberty disappeared so far 
as they were concerned, though their interest 
in the Colonists was maintained. The sons 
of these Puritans who crossed the ocean rather 
than go to the established church, refused to 
pay a tax on tea, about 150 years later, and 
formed a new country with a new flag. That 
was part of the result of the sailing of the little 
company from Rev. Mr. Robinson's flock after 
a night spent in prayer in this town of Delfts- 
haven, just about this time of the year in 1620. 



amuumDiiuuimK 



The stay of the Puritans in Holland had no 
effect on the Dutch. They let the Puritans 
shoot their mouths any way they pleased, and 
the Puritan only prospers and proselytes on 
opposition. But the Dutch of the present 
day are getting good returns for that invest- 
ment of long ago. There are a dozen places 
in Holland, here and at Amsterdam and Ley- 
den, visited by Americans every year because 
they are historic spots in connection with the 



54 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

Pilgrims. At each and every place the con- 
tribution-box is in sight, and the Dutch church 
or town which owns the property gets a hand- 
some revenue. New England churches give 
liberally to the fixing up of the Dutch churches 
which can show a record of having been just 
once the place where some Puritan preached. 



> 



jumiiiintniiimraiii 



Wooden shoes have not gone out of style in 
Holland. They are still worn generally in the 
country, and by the poorer children and men 
in the cities. They are cheap, which is a big 
recommendation to the Dutch. They are 
warm, said to be much warmer than leather. 
It does not hurt them to be wet, a very de- 
sirable feature in this water-soaked country. 
These are all good reasons, and as soon as you 
get used to the clatter and the apparent awk- 
wardness you appreciate the fact that the 
"klompen," as the Dutch call them, are a 
reasonable style for Holland. They are not 
worn in the house but dropped in the entry- 
way, and house shoes or stocking feet go with- 
in. The Dutch farmer is proud of his clogs, 
paints them, carves them, and scrubs them. 
A man with idle time, like a fisherman, will 
often spend months decorating a pair of 



THE PILGRIMS' START 55 

wooden shoes. They are considered a proper 
present from a young husband to his bride, 
and she will use them when scrubbing, which 
is a good part of the time. The shoes are 
generally made of poplar, and to the size of 
the foot. When the foot grows you can hollow 
out a little more shoe. Wooden shoes are as 
common here as overalls in America, and they 
will not grow less popular unless Holland goes 
dry — of which I see no indication. 



liiiiiiuriKiiimjiuiM 



The farm-houses are usually built in con- 
nection with the barns, the family living in 
front and the stock and feed occupying the 
rear. This is rather customary in cold cli- 
mates, and you must remember that Holland 
is farther north than Quebec. The winters 
get very cold and the canals and rivers freeze 
over. Skating is the great national sport. 
There does not seem to be much summer sport 
except scrubbing. All through the summer 
the people dig and weed and fertilize and pre- 
pare for market. The dikes and canals must 
be maintained and the best made of a short 
season. In the winter they can live with the 
pretty black-and-white cattle, the sheep and 
the horses, and have a good time. 



Amsterdam, and Others 

Amsterdam, July 27. 
This is the largest and most important city 
of Holland. It has about as much commerce 
as Rotterdam, and is longer on history, manu- 
factures, art, and society. It was the first 
large city built up on a canal system, and its 
600,000 population is a proof that something 
can be built out of nothing. Along about 
1300 and 1400 it was a small town in a swamp. 
When the war for independence from Spain 
began, in 1656, Amsterdam profited by its 
location on the Zuyder Zee. The Spaniards 
ruined most of the rival towns and put an end 
to the commerce of Antwerp for a while, and 
Amsterdam received the mechanics and mer- 
chants fleeing from the soldiers of Alva. The 
name means a "dam," or dike, on the Amstel 
river. The swamp was reclaimed from the 
water by dikes and drainage canals, but even 
now every house in the city must have its 
foundation on piles. The word dam, or its 
inclusion in a name, means just about what 

(56) 



AMSTERDAM, AND OTHERS 57 

it does in English, provided you refer to the 
proper dam, not the improper damn. As 
nearly all Dutch towns are built on dam sites 
a great many of them are some-kind-of-a-dam. 
Amsterdam is built below the level of the sea, 
which is just beside it, and the water in the 
canals is pumped out by big engines and forced 
over the dike into the sea. If this were not 
done the water would come over the town site 
and Amsterdam would go back to swamp and 
not be worth a dam site. 



MBMOHMM 



Amsterdam is the chief money market of 
Holland, and one of the financial capitals of 
the world. It is the place an American pro- 
moter makes for when he is out after the stuff 
with which to make the female horse travel. 
A large part of its business men are Jews, and 
their ability and wealth have maintained the 
credit of Dutch interests in all parts of the 
globe. At a time when the Jews were being 
persecuted nearly everywhere they were given 
liberty in Holland, and much of the country's 
progress is due to that fact and to the religious 
toleration of all kinds of sects. 

The canals run along nearly all the streets, 



58 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

and are filled with freight-boats from the coun- 
try and from other cities. Thousands of these 
canal-boats lie in the canals of Amsterdam and 
are the homes of the boatmen, who are the 
commerce carriers of Holland. Under our 
window is tied up a canal-boat which could 
carry as much freight as a dozen American 
box cars. The power is a sail or a pole or a 
man or a woman, whichever is most conven- 
ient. The boatman and his wife and ten or 
fifteen children, with a dog and a cat, live 
comfortably in one end, and we can watch 
them at their work and play. A dozen more 
such boats are lying in this block, some with 
steam engines and some with gasoline engines. 
The Standard Oil Company does a great busi- 
ness in Holland, and as usual is a great help to 
the people. It is introducing cheap power for 
canal-boats by means of proper engines, and 
in a short time will probably free the boatman 
and his wife from the pull-and-push system 
received from the good old days. 

The canals are lined with big buildings, 
business and residence, mostlv from four to 
six stories high, with the narrow, peaked and 
picturesque architecture made familiar to us 



AMSTERDAM, AND OTHERS 59 

by the pictures. All kinds of color are used 
and ornamented fronts are common. Imagine 
a street such as I describe and you have this 
one that is under our hotel window and which 
is the universal street scene of Amsterdam. 
Some one called this the Venice of the North, 
but to my mind it is prettier than Venice, 
although it lacks some of the oriental archi- 
tecture and smell. 



ULWijiU!iua!miiu:n 



Last night we went to the Rembrandt 
theatre to see "The Mikado," in Dutch. Of 
course we could follow the music of the old- 
time friend, and the language made the play 
funnier than ever. The Dutch are not near so 
strong on music as are their German or French 
neighbors. They utilize compositions of other 
nations, and American airs are very common. 
The window of a large fine music store is 
playing up "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?" 
A few Americans were at the big garden 
Krasnapolsky, listening to a really fine orches- 
tra with an Austrian leader. We sent up a re- 
quest for the American national air and it 
came promptly: "Whistling Rufus." The 
Europeans think the cake-walk is something 



60 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

like a national dance in our country, and when- 
ever they try to please us they turn loose 
one of our rag-time melodies. They do not 
mind chucking the "Georgia Campmeeting" 
or "Rings on My Fingers and Bells on My 
Toes," into a program of Wagner and Tschudi 
and other composers whom we are taught at 
home to consider sacred. 



inniuiiiiuiiitiiiiiiiai 



The most entertaining feature of the Am- 
sterdam landscape that I have seen is a Dutch 
lady in a hobble skirt. The fashion is here 
all right, and it would make an American 
hobble appear tame and common. In the 
first place, the Dutch lady is not of the proper 
architecture, and in the second place, she still 
wears a lot more underskirts, or whatever 
they are, than are considered necessary in 
Paris or Hutchinson. But she does not ex- 
pand the hobble. The shopping street of 
Amsterdam is filled with fashionably dressed 
Dutch ladies who look like tops, and who are 
worth coming a long ways to see. Far be it 
from me to criticize the freaks of female 
fashion. I never know what they are until 
after they are past due. But if the Dutch 



AMSTERDAM, AND OTHERS 61 

hobble ever reaches the American side of the 
Atlantic it will be time for the mere men to 
organize. 



inii!ii:iiii::imiiuiiui 



The greatest art gallery in Europe is here, 
The Rijks Museum. I went to see it — once. 
I do not get the proper thrills from seeing a 
thousand pictures in thirty minutes. They 
make me tired. But Rembrandt's Night 
Watch, or nearly anything a good Dutch 
artist has painted, is a real pleasure. The 
Dutch are recognizing their own modern art, 
and in that way they are going to distance the 
Italians. The Dutch artists are good at pro- 
traying people and common things, such as 
cats and dogs and ships. They are not strong 
in allegory or imaginative work, and you do 
not have to be educated up to enjoy them. 
And they run a little fun into their work oc- 
casionally, which would shock a Dago artist 
out of his temperament. 



UIIIIWNIOtlUlltlnK 



Wages are higher in Holland than elsewhere 
in Europe. A street car conductor gets a 
dollar a day. Ordinary labor is paid sixty to 
eighty cents a day. Farm laborer about $15 



62 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

per month, but boards himself. A good all- 
around hired girl is a dollar a week. Me- 
chanics receive from one dollar to two dollars 
a day. The necessaries of life are not so high 
as with us. Vegetables are cheaper. To- 
bacco is much less. Meats are about as high. 
Clothing is cheaper, but our people wouldn't 
wear it. Beer is two cents a glass and lemon- 
ade is five cents. The ordinary workingman 
lives on soup, vegetables, and very little 
meat ; gets a new suit of clothes about once 
in five years, and takes his family to a garden 
for amusement, where they get all they want 
for ten cents. The Dutch citizen on foot is 
plain, honest, a little rude, but of good heart 
and very accommodating. I have not met the 
citizens in carriages and on horseback, who 
make up a very small part of the procession 
in Holland. 



Cheeses and Bulbses 

Alkmaar, July 28. 
Of course Holland is the greatest cheese 
country on earth, and Alkmaar is the biggest 
cheese market in Holland. Every Friday the 
cheesemakers of the district bring their prod- 
uct to the public market, and buyers, local 
and foreign, bargain for and purchase the 
cheeses. That is why we came to Alkmaar 
on Friday. The cheese market is certainly 
an interesting and novel sight. All over the 
big public square are piled little mounds of 
cheeses, shaped like large grape-fruit and col- 
ored in various shades of red and yellow. 
Each wholesaler has his carriers in uniform 
of white, and a straw hat and ribbons col- 
ored as a livery. When a sale is made, two 
carriers take a barrow which they carry sus- 
pended from their shoulders and with a sort 
of two-step and many cries to get out of the 
way they bring their load to the public weigh- 
house, where it is officially weighed. Then 
off the cheeses go to the store-rooms or to 

(63) 



64 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

the canal-boats which line one side of the 
square, waiting to take their freight to the 
cities or to the sea. The farmers look over 
each other's cheeses as they do hogs at the 
Kansas State Fair, with comments of praise 
or criticism. There is much chaffing and chaf- 
fering between them and the buyers. In 
about two hours the cheeses are gone, the 
square is empty and the beer-houses are full. 
The women-folks do not take an active part 
in the market, but they are present and look- 
ing things over, and I suspect they had been 
permitted to milk the cows and make the 
cheese. 

About $3,000,000 worth of cheese is sold 
annually in the Alkmaar market. The coun- 
try round about, North Holland, is all small 
farms, with gardens and pastures and little 
herds of the black-and-white cattle. The 
cheese wholesales at about 60 cents a cheese, 
and in America we pay about twice that much 
for the same, or for the Edam, which is like 
it. The farmers look prosperous, drive good 
horses and very substantial gaily painted 
wagons. 



CHEESES AND BULBSES 65 

Alkmaar has 18,000 population, and is there- 
fore about the size of Hutchinson. But it is 
a good deal older. Back in 1573 it success- 
fully defended itself against the Spaniards. 
The name means "all sea," because the coun- 
try was originally covered with water. The 
land is kept above the water now by pump- 
ing and pouring into canals which are higher 
than the farms through which they flow. 
This is done very systematically and by wind- 
mills. A district thus maintained is called a 
"polder," something like our irrigation dis- 
trict, and on one of them near Alkmaar, about 
the size of a Kansas township, six miles 
square, there are 51 windmills working all 
the time, pumping the water. These are not 
little windmills like those in a Kansas pasture, 
but great fellows with big arms fifty feet long, 
and they stand out over the polder like so 
many giants. The picture of these mills in a 
most fertile garden-spot, with canal streaks 
here and there and boats on the canals looming 
up above the land, is certainly a striking one. 
And it shows clearly what energy can do 
when properly applied. 



66 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

The soil is as sandy as in South Hutchin- 
son. But dirt and fertilizer are brought from 
the back country and the soil is kept con- 
stantly renewed. It seems to me that with 
comparatively little work the sandy soil of 
the Arkansas valley can be made into a mar- 
ket garden, producing many times its pres- 
ent value, whenever our people take it into 
their heads to manufacture their own soil 
and apply water when needed and not just 
when it rains. That time will come, but 
probably not until a dense population forces 
a great increase in production. 



iimiiimiiaiiiiiiiintit 



I have another idea. Along the coast of 
Holland are the "sand dunes," which are 
exactly like our sand hills. What we should 
do is to change the name from sand hills 
to "dunes," brag about them and charge 
people for visiting them. The city of Am- 
sterdam gets its supply of drinking-water from 
the dunes. This was important news to me, 
for it confirmed my theory as to the simi- 
larity of the dunes and the sand hills, and 
also suggested that somebody in Amsterdam 



CHEESES AND BULBSES 67 

used water for drinking purposes, a fact I 
had not noticed while there. 



] ra.MiniunU 



We spent part of a day in Haarlem, where 
the tulips come from. The soil conditions 
are like those at Alkmaar, but the country 
is a mass of nurseries, flower gardens, and 
beautiful growing plants. We are out of 
season for tulips, but this is the time when 
the bulbs are being collected and dried to be 
shipped in all directions. Not only tulips 
but crocuses, hyacinths, lilies, anemones, etc., 
are raised for the market, — cut flowers to the 
cities, bulbs to all parts of the world. Just 
now the gardens are filled with phlox, dahlias, 
larkspurs, nasturtiums, — by the acre. The 
flowers are about the same as at home. Out 
of this thin, scraggly, sandy soil the gardeners 
of North Holland are taking money for 
flowers and bulbs faster than miners in gold- 
fields. With flowers and cheeses these Dutch 
catch about all kinds of people. 



lllllimilllC'liriiillillc 



Haarlem is the capital of the province of 
North Holland, and is full of quaint houses 



68 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

of ancient architecture. It was one of the 
hot towns for independence when the war 
with Spain began. The Spaniards besieged 
it, and after a seven-months gallant de- 
fense, in which even the women fought as 
soldiers, the town surrendered under prom- 
ise of clemency. The Spaniards broke their 
promise and put to death the entire garrison 
and nearly all the townspeople. This out- 
rage so incensed the Dutch in other places 
that the war was fought more bitterly than 
before, and the crime — for such it was — really 
aided in the final expulsion of the Spaniards. 



jiimtmmoimiinnnt 



Along in the seventeenth century was the 
big boom in Haarlem. The tulip mania de- 
veloped and bulbs sold for thousands of dol- 
lars. Capitalists engaged in the speculation 
and the trade went into big figures. Millions 
of dollars were spent for the bulbs, and so 
long as the demand and the market continued 
every tulip-raiser was rich. Finally the re- 
action came, as it always does to a boom, and 
everybody went broke. A bulb which sold 
for $5,000 one year was not worth 50 cents 
the next. The government added to the con- 



CHEESES AND BULBSES 69 

fusion by decreeing that all contracts for fu- 
ture deliveries were illegal. The usual phe- 
nomenon of a panic followed, everybody los- 
ing and nobody gaining. A hundred years 
later there was about the same kind of a 
boom in hyacinths, and the same result. It 
will be observed that the Dutch are not so 
much unlike Americans when it comes to 
booms, only it takes longer for them to for- 
get and calls for more experience. 



Frans Hals, a great Dutch painter, almost 
next to Rembrandt, was born in Haarlem, 
and a number of his pictures are in the city 
building. It was customary in those days 
for the mayor and city council to have a group 
picture painted and hung in the town hall. 
This was the way most of the Dutch artists 
got their start, for the officials were always 
wealthy citizens who were willing to pay more 
for their own pictures than for studies of na- 
ture or allegory. I wonder if the officials paid 
their own money or did they voucher it 
through the city treasury and charge it to 
sprinkling or street work? 



70 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

Both Alkmaar and Haarlem are interest- 
ing because they are intensely Dutch. Their 
principal occupations, cheesemaking and flow- 
er-raising, have been their principal occu- 
pations for centuries. They had nothing to 
start with, and had to fight for that. Now 
they are loaning money to the world. If the 
people of Kansas worked as hard as do the 
Dutch and were as economical and saving, 
in one generation they would have all the 
money in the world. But they wouldn't have 
much fun. 

The American way of economizing may be 
illustrated by a story. Once upon a time in 
a certain town — which I want to say was not 
in Kansas, for I have no desire to be sum- 
moned before the attorney-general to tell all 
about it — a man and his wife were in the 
habit of sending out every night and getting 
a quart of beer for 10 cents. They drank this 
before retiring, and were reasonably comfort- 
able. Prosperity came to them, and the man 
bought a keg of beer. That night he drew off 
a quart, and as he sat in his stocking-feet he 
philosophized to his wife and said : "See how 
we are saving money. By buying a keg of 



CHEESES AND BULBSES 71 

beer at a time this quart we are drinking costs 
only 6 cents. So we are saving 4 cents." 
She looked at him with admiration, and re- 
plied : "How fine! Let's have another quart 
and save 4 cents more." 



Historic Ley den 

Leyden, July 31. 
We came to Leyden to spend the night, 
and have stayed three days. This was partly 
because it is necessary to sometimes rest your 
neck and feet, and partly because the Hotel 
Levedag is one of those delightful places where 
the beds are soft, the eats good and the help 
around the hotel does its best to make you 
comfortable. Leyden itself is worth while, 
but ordinarily it would be disposed of in two 
walks and a carriage-ride. It is a college 
town, and this is vacation ; so everybody in 
the place has had the time to wait on wander- 
ing Americans and make the process of ex- 
tracting their money as sweet and as long 
drawn out as possible. 



MiuiioiiDiuniinnii 



Leyden is a good deal like Lawrence, Kan- 
sas. It is full of historic spots, and is very 
quiet in the summer-time. In Leyden they 
refer to the siege by the Spaniards in 1573 
just as the Lawrence people speak of the 

(72) 



HISTORIC LEYDEN 73 

Quantrill raid. The Dutch were in their war 
for independence, and the Duke of Alva's 
army besieged Leyden. They began in Oc- 
tober, and as the town was well fortified it 
resisted bravely. Early in the year the neigh- 
boring town of Haarlem had surrendered and 
the Spaniards had tied the citizens back to 
back and chucked them into the river. The 
Leydenites preferred to die fighting rather 
than surrender and die. They had just about 
come to starvation in March of the next year, 
when thev decided to break down the dikes 
and let the sea take the country. The sea 
brought in a relief fleet sent by William the 
Silent, Prince of Orange, and the Spaniards 
retreated before the water. Then the wind 
changed, drove back the waves, and William 
fixed the dikes. This siege of Leyden was 
really one of the great events in history, and 
the story goes that out of gratitude to the 
people of the town William offered to exempt 
them from taxes for a term of years or to es- 
tablish a University in their city. Leyden 
took the University, which is hard to believe 
of the Dutch, unless they were farseeing 
enough to know that the students would be 



74 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

a never-ending source of income and that the 
taxes would come back. The university thus 
established by William of Orange in 1575 has 
been one of the best of the educational in- 
stitutions in Europe, and has produced many 
great scholars. It now has 1700 students and 
a strong faculty. Some of the boys must be 
making up flunks by attending summer school, 
for last night at an hour when all good Dutch- 
men should be in bed, the sweet strains came 
through the odor of the canal, same old tune 
but Dutch words: "I don't care what be- 
comes of me, while I am singing this sweet 
melody, yip de yaddy aye yea, aye yea, yip- 
de yaddy, aye yea." 



ramiimmmnmiii 



The river Rhine filters through Leyden and 
to the sea. It never would get there, for 
Leyden is several feet below the sea-level, but 
by the use of big locks the Dutch raise the 
river to the proper height and pour it in. 
These are the dikes the Dutch opened to 
drive out the Spaniards. It is so easy I 
wonder they did not do it earlier. At any 
rate, the Spaniards never got much of a hold 
in this part of Holland again. The sand- 




NO PLACE FOR A MAN FROM KANSAS 



HISTORIC LEYDEN 75 

hills along the beach make an ideal bathing- 
place. I took a canal-boat and in three hours' 
time covered the six miles from Leyden to 
Katryk. The Dutch ladies and gentlemen 
were playing in the water and on the sand, 
and it was no place for a man from Kansas. 
I have no criticism of these big bathing- 
beaches and we have some in our own fair 
land where the scenery is just as startling. 
But the Dutch ladies consider a skirt which 
does not touch the ground the same as im- 
modest. And no Dutch gentleman will ap- 
pear in public without his vest as well as his 
coat. On the beach the reaction is great, so 
great that I don't blame the Spaniards for 
running away. 



Iiiiiimmoiiiiiiiiiiic 



It was in Leyden that the congregation of 
Puritans resided which sent the delegation 
of Pilgrim Fathers across the Atlantic in 
1620. In St. Peter's church John Robinson, 
the pastor, lies buried, and there he is said 
to have preached. A tablet tells of the house 
across the way which occupies the site of the 
little church in which Robinson held forth for 
years. The present house was not built un- 



76 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

til 1683, but that is close enough to make it 
interesting. The Puritans had several con- 
gregations in Leyden, but the Robinson 
church is the only one that made history. 
When the civil war broke out in England and 
Cromwell was leading the cause of liberty, 
all of the Puritans in Leyden who had not 
gone to America and who could raise the fare, 
returned to England and disappeared from 
the Dutch records. They were fine people 
in many ways, but the Dutch did not try to 
get them to stay. They dearly loved to 
argue, and when it was necessary to promote 
religious freedom by punching the heads of 
those who did not believe as they did, the 
Puritans were there with the punch. 



aaamiuiamimnur 



Rembrandt, the great Dutch painter, was 
born in Leyden, in 1606. A stable now marks 
the spot where he first saw the 1 ght. It is 
a little difficult to get up a thrill in a livery 
stable, but we did our best. Rembrandt's 
father was a miller, and operated one of these 
big Dutch windmills. When Rembrandt was 
about 25 years old he married and moved to 
Amsterdam, but he did not settle down. 



HISTORIC LEYDEN 77 

While he became popular and made a good 
deal of money, he was no manager and he 
spent like a true sport. When his wife died 
he went broke, and lived the last years of his 
life in a modest way. About 550 paintings 
are now known and attributed to him, to- 
gether with about 250 etchings and more 
than a thousand drawings. His portrayals 
of expression and of lights and shadows are 
the great points of excellence in his work, but 
he was a master of every detail of the art. 
His pictures command more money than those 
of any other artist, and to my notion he is 
the greatest of all the great painters. Most 
of the other old fellows have left but few 
masterpieces, while Rembrandt never did any- 
thing but great work. The Dutch worship 
God, Rembrandt and William of Orange, and 
I never can tell which comes first with them. 

There is a hill in Leyden, eighty feet high 
and several hundred yards around the base. 
It is well covered with trees, and was topped 
with a fort in the good old days. Unfortu- 
nately, the buildings around it — for it is in 
the middle of town — keep it from being seen 



78 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

at a distance. People come from far and 
near to see the hill. It is as much of a nov- 
elty in this part of Holland as a Niagara 
would be in Kansas. 



iimiHiiniiniiiiiiui 



The public market is a feature in every 
Dutch town, as it is in most European coun- 
tries. A large square is devoted to the pur- 
pose, and here the fish, the vegetables and 
everything from livestock to second-hand 
books is offered for sale. The square and 
the sidewalks are covered with the market 
displays, the farmers, the fishermen, the buy- 
ers, and the curious. There is only one small 
newspaper in this city of 60,000 inhabitants, 
but I suppose everybody hears the news at 
the market. It is better than a show, or an 
art gallery, or a cathedral, to see the dicker- 
ing, hear the talk and watch the people. 
The housewives or their representatives are 
there with baskets and comments, and the 
men of the town have some excuse to be 
around. Peasant costumes, peculiar head- 
dresses, large fat ladies, wooden shoes, and 
all the odd and picturesque things that you 
can put into a landscape surrounded by quaint 



HISTORIC LEYDEN 79 

buildings and a canal, are mixed in confusion 
and yet in order. The colors which the 
painters put into their Holland pictures are 
present, and the sturdy, thrifty, trafficking 
Dutch people are there with the petticoats 
or the tobacco-smoke, which their sex calls 
for under such circumstances. Here in Ley- 
den, where a house less than a hundred years 
old is a curiosity and where Dutch traditions 
are held as sacred, we have enjoyed the won- 
derful nature-picture of this moving market. 
And I might add that we have contributed 
greatly to the hilarity of the occasion by our 
own peculiar appearance and ways — pecu- 
liar from the view-point of the other fellow. 



The Dutch Capital 

The Hague, Aug. 2. 
This is the capital of Holland and soon will 
be, in a way, of the civilized world. The first 
international peace conference was held here, 
followed by the establishment of an inter- 
national tribunal to decide disputes between 
nations, and now, thanks to President Taft's 
statesmanship, the nations are agreeing to 
arbitrate all differences, and this Hague tribu- 
nal will doubtless be the court of last resort 
for the world. The propriety of the selection 
of The Hague is not questioned. Holland is 
a small nation, with practically no forts or 
standing army or navy. It is not a factor in 
international politics, and its own independ- 
ence and integrity are guaranteed by the 
various treaties between the nations. Its im- 
portance is commercial and not political, it 
has no alliances, and occupies a unique po- 
sition among the countries of Europe. Paris 
or London or Berlin would not do for the 
location of an international tribunal, because 

(80) 



THE DUTCH CAPITAL 81 

each would be subject to local influence and 
force, but all nations can come to The Hague, 
the capital of the country whose territory 
they have promised to protect. As the arbi- 
tration treaties increase in number the practice 
of referring disputes to The Hague will be- 
come almost universal, and it seems to me 
that this will make the beautiful Dutch city 
the capital of the world. Other cities will 
strive for commercial supremacy, but The 
Hague will be the center for statesmanship 
and government. 



jmiiraniiniimiiraii 



The Dutch have abbreviated the old name 
S'Gravenhage to Den Haag, and they pro- 
nounce the name of the capital just as we do 
the word hog. The old word meant "The 
Count's Hedge" or wood, because there was 
a small forest here belonging to the Counts 
of Holland. The forest is still here, a beautiful 
piece of natural woods about a mile and a half 
long and half as wide. At the farther end of 
this forest is "The House in the Wood," 
which is in fact a beautiful little palace built 
in 1645 by Princess Amalia, the widow of 
Prince Frederick Henry of Orange. Amalia 



A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 



had a new idea in memorials, for the principal 
room of the palace, the orange room, is deco- 
rated by pictures from the brushes of pupils of 
Rubens, and while they portray scenes in the 
life of the Prince they are full of fat cherubs, 
scantily dressed ladies and very racy sug- 
gestion. I am told Amalia was that way, but 
I have no personal knowledge. All this hap- 
pened nearly 300 years ago, and in any event 
she had a most charming palace. Several 
rooms are filled with gifts from the Emperors 
of China and Japan to Wilhelmina, and they 
add to the general hilarity of the memorial. 



iiiiniiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiir 



Although The Hague was the center of the 
Dutch government practically all the time 
from 1584, when the representatives of the 
Dutch provinces met here to form a League 
against Spain, it had no representation in the 
government until the last century. The orig- 
inal cities in the federation refused to admit 
The Hague, and it was a sort of District of 
Columbia until Napoleon took possession of 
Holland on the theory that it was formed from 
the deposits of dirt made by French rivers. 
Napoleon gave The Hague a local government, 



THE DUTCH CAPITAL 83 

which it has since retained. It has grown 
much in late years, and is a beautiful city with 
good architecture, many wide streets, fine 
public buildings, handsome private homes, 
pretty canals, and shaded avenues. It is a 
custom in Holland and the Dutch colonies 
for men of wealth to come to The Hague, put 
up fine houses and spend some of their money, 
just as the "town farmers" do in Hutchinson. 



]imiiHimtjiimii'ii:a 



We went to see the Gevangenpoort, an 
ancient tower in which prisoners were con- 
fined, tortured and executed. They still keep 
some of the interesting machines with which 
justice was dealt out in the good old days. A 
prisoner whom the authorities desired to con- 
vict would be allowed to prove his innocence 
by the ordeal of fire. He was permitted to 
walk with bare feet on a red hot gridiron. If 
he was innocent the heat would not affect his 
naked soles, if guilty it would. But that is 
nothing. Our own dear old Pilgrim fathers 
used to take a woman charged with witchcraft 
and toss her into a pond. If she were a witch, 
the evil spirit would keep her from drowning 
and the Puritans would put her to death. If 



84 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

she drowned, her innocence of the charge was 
proven — and they buried her in the church- 
yard. 

The Dutch got their early ideas of prison 
reform from the Spaniards. There is a ma- 
chine in the Gevangenpoort which dropped 
water onto a man's head for hours. If he lived 
he was crazy. Then they had a 1611 model 
of a rack which would break the bones in the 
arms and legs and not kill the prisoner, and 
he could be tortured later. Pincers to pull 
out finger-nails, branding-irons, and stocks 
that kept a man or a woman standing on the 
toes for hours, were light punishments for 
petty thievery. A very popular form of pun- 
ishment was to hang the prisoner by his feet, 
head down, and let the populace come in and 
enjoy the sight. Of course these old instru- 
ments are mere relics now, but just remember 
they were the real thing only 300 years ago, 
and 300 years is not long in the history of the 
world. We never think that it was just as 
long between 1311 and 1611 as it has been 
from 1611 to now. We confusedly jumble all 
the events of about 500 years into "Middle 
Ages," and can't remember which was in 



THE DUTCH CAPITAL 85 

which century. The last 300 years seem long 
and full of events, while the three centuries 
before are remembered as all of one time. I 
wonder if the people on earth in 22 11 will look 
over some Gevangenpoort of ours and shudder 
at the savagery of 1911? 

Incidentally I want to report that the people 
of Europe are looking on President Taft as 
the great man of the age — I mean the great 
common people are. His successful advocacy 
of international arbitration is hailed as the 
coming of an era of peace. You don't know 
what that means to Europe, where nearly 
every man has to give years of his life to army 
service, where heavy taxes for forts and ships 
bear down on the people, and where there is 
always a possibility of war with a neighboring 
nation, which would mean great loss of life. 
Nearly all of this war sacrifice falls upon the 
people, and while they patriotically sustain 
their governments they hail Taft's policy of 
peace as the greatest help that has come to 
them in countless years, the advance step that 
will relieve the burden that bends the back 
of what Mr. Bryan calls "the plain common 



86 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

people." No wonder these people are for 
Taft — but of course they can't vote for him 
in 1912. 



jiiuiiiiiiioiuiiiiiiiir 



The government of Holland is a sort of 
aristocratic republic with a monarch for orna- 
ment. There is a lower house of congress 
elected by popular vote, with some restrictions 
as to property on the right of suffrage. There 
is an upper house selected with still more re- 
strictions. The upper house only can intro- 
duce bills. The lower house only can enact 
them into laws. The queen signs when the 
Dutch congress, or states-general, tells her to 
sign. She gets a salary of about $400,000 a 
year and is rich in her own right. The busi- 
ness men complain that she is stingy and the 
women say she is slouchy. Taxes are high, 
and in all the forms imaginable. They tax 
theatre tickets, bank checks, receipts, all docu- 
ments, incomes and lands, and in some places 
the number of windows in a house. Taxes 
are "high" everywhere I go. I thought per- 
haps when I got where I could not understand 
the language I would no longer be bored by 
the man who complains about taxes. But I 



THE DUTCH CAPITAL 87 

haven't yet found that place. I suppose 
when I quit traveling on this earthly sphere 
the first thing I will hear will be a kick on the 
cost of paving the golden streets, or a com- 
plaint that the tax on sulphur is going to kill 
the prosperity of the country. 



"The Dutch Company." 

Arnhem, August 5. 
This is the "last chance" station in Holland. 
About ten miles more and we cross the line 
into Germany. This is also the only hilly 
part of Holland, and it really is a surprise to 
find that somewhere in this little country there 
are neither canals nor dikes. The river Rhine 
flows here with some current, and the official 
documents say that at Arnhem it is 35 feet 
above the level of the sea. Right sharp little 
hills, as big as those about Strong City, rise 
from the river bank, and are covered with 
woods and handsome homes. Queen Wil- 
helmina has her summer residence near here, 
and Dutch colonials, who have made their 
fortunes and returned to the native land, are 
fond of this small and elevated piece of Nether- 
land. The Dutch make a great deal of money 
out of their East India colonies, one of which 
is Java. They are not so much interested in 
preparing the Javanese or the Mochans for 
the work of self-government as our folks are 

(88) 



THE DUTCH COMPANY*' 89 



the Filipinos. The Dutch theory is to treat 
the natives kindly but make them work as 
the dogs do in Holland. And the Javanese or 
the Javans, or whatever you call them, are 
too busy to get dissatisfied and plan revolu- 
tions. This question of what to do with the 
white man's burden is a hard one to settle 
offhand. The brown people do not understand 
the American motives, and the Americans are 
probably the most detested people in the 
Orient. And yet the Americans are the only 
conquering nation which does not regard col- 
onies as personal property and which tries to 
elevate the citizenship it finds. The English 
hold India by fear, but some day the English 
are going to be chased out of that part of Asia 
by the Indians they try to keep down. The 
other European nations make no bones of the 
fact that they own and operate their foreign 
possessions for what they can get out of them. 



JKMIIIIOmllllUilt 



A Hollander makes a very strong American 
when he is caught young. On shipboard I 
made the acquaintance of a young man about 
25 years old who had been in America nine 
years, and was now going to his birthplace, 



90 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

___________________________________________ _____ ________ 

The Hague, on business for the Chicago firm 
with which he is connected. I met him in The 
Hague this week. He wore a western cowboy- 
hat, had a small American flag in his button- 
hole, and wore no vest. The stories he was 
telling about the United States to his Dutch 
friends showed that he would have made a 
success as a real-estate man if he had settled 
in western Kansas. And the manner in which 
he did not take off his hat when he met a 
doctor or a lawyer or a duke or a notary public 
was shocking to his family, but was sweet 
American patriotism to him. He was still 
loyal to Holland, but he would not trade his 
new home with its opportunities for all the 
comforts of canals and clean streets. 'You 
see," he said, "in Holland every man has to 
take off his hat to those above him — and there 
are always those above him." Of course we 
have classes, in a way, in our country, but a 
man never has to take off his hat or pay 
homage to another man, and the real Amer- 
ican, home-grown or imported, can't get that 
feeling of equality out of his system. I think 
the Europeans must grow very tired of us 
Americans, our blustering ways and bragging 



"the dutch company" 91 

talk, but they are kind enough not to mention 
it so long as our money holds out. 



iiui nntiiou mums 



Passenger fares on trains are cheaper in 
Holland than with us. But of course their 
railroad business is really like an interurban 
street-car system. Freight rates are higher 
than with us. The wages paid railway em- 
ployes run from 60 cents a day to section 
hands up to $2 a day for an engineer — just 
about one-third to one-half our schedule. The 
service is good, the stations and tracks are 
better, every little country road-crossing is 
protected by a flagman or a flagwoman. Of 
course the canals and rivers do so much of the 
carrying business, and distances are so small, 
that comparisons are hard to make. There is 
no such thing in Holland as a sandwich or a 
piece of pie, and yet there are very successful 
and excellent lunch-rooms in every station. 
The first- and second-class passengers usually 
have a lunch-room with upholstered furniture, 
while the third-class travelers are compelled 
to use wooden benches or stand up, a la Amer- 
icaner. The first-class railroad cars are fitted 
out with plush, and there are sometimes toilet 



92 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

accommodations on the cars. The second- 
class cars are comfortably upholstered ; the 
third-class have plain seats like our street 
cars. But remember you can go clear across 
Holland in a couple of hours, and do not need 
some of the comforts which are considered 
necessities in America. 



jmuamionmrami 



The Dutch are great on fixing things com- 
fortably and neatly. If the beautiful Cow 
Creek which winds its way through Hutchin- 
son were transferred to a Dutch town it would 
be diked, the banks graded and covered with 
grass and flowers and trees. The govern- 
ment would do this, and would put seats along 
the little park, and a band-stand from which 
music would be heard, and swings for the 
children, and almost every block there would 
be a "garden" with tables and all the beer you 
could drink — if you were Dutch — for two 
cents. And the Government would make a 
nice profit out of the restaurant business and 
go ahead and dike another stream. 



jiumiumaimiiiiMic 



The Dutchman is a great business man. 
He works and saves and then he is not afraid 



"the dutch company" 93 

to spend — if he has a sure thing. I have seen 
a business man smoking a cigarette, take out 
of his vest pocket a pair of scissors, snip off 
the burning end and put the unconsumed half 
of a cigarette back in his case. No Dutchman 
is afraid to demand cheap prices while trav- 
eling at home. The average American who 
goes through Europe with the theory of spend- 
ing his money like a sport must fill the Dutch- 
man with disgust. You don't impress the 
Hollanders that way. On the other hand, 
these Dutchmen will investigate and spend 
barrels of money on dikes, drains, railroads, 
buildings and large investments in all parts of 
the world. I suppose the almost penurious 
saving comes from the fight with the sea, in 
which everything had to be watched and 
worked for, while the ability to handle big 
affairs results from the consciousness of having 
wrested a lot of land from the ocean and hav- 
ing made good with it. 

The Dutch are proverbially honest. Of 
course I have been over-charged some, but I 
have never been anywhere on either side of 
the Atlantic where the rule was not observed, 



94 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

"he was a stranger and I took him in." They 
hold a visitor up much more in Kansas City 
than in Amsterdam, and a man from Kansas 
who goes to New York is not even given the 
protection of the game laws. In fact, a 
stranger who does not know the language is 
treated much better in Europe than in Amer- 
ica. I have often had a man walk half a block 
to show me the way when I could not under- 
stand his words. I say "walk a block," but 
there is no such phrase in Dutch. There are 
no regular sized blocks, so a direction is given 
as "five minutes" or "two mnutes, then to 
the right three minutes." That is supposed 
to mean an average walk ; but as legs differ 
in size and rapidity it is often confusing. I 
am told in the rural districts a distance is given 
as so many smokes, meaning the number of 
pipefuls of tobacco that a Dutchman would 
consume in going that far. But I have dis- 
covered that in Holland a pipe is a rarity. The 
men smoke cigars and smoke them incessantly. 
They are cheap. I get a good cigar, equiva- 
lent to a Tom Moore, for two cents American 
money. When I buy cigars I want to stay 
in Holland. But practically everything ex- 



"the dutch company" 95 

cept cigars, beer and wooden shoes costs as 
much here as in the United States. Yes, there 
is one thing that costs less, and that is labor. 
Therefore hand-carved wood, hand-crocheted 
lace, hand-made shoes, tailored clothes, and 
houses are less expensive than with us. The 
more I see of a country where everything 
labor produces is cheap, the more I am in 
favor of high prices and good wages. Holland 
is probably the best country in Europe for a 
laboring man, but I don't see how one can get 
ahead, unless he does without meat and wears 
the same suit for years, and his family econo- 
mize the same way. Here in the land of cheese 
and butter, both articles are out of reach and 
the workingman uses "margarine." 

But now it is goodby to the land of the dikes, 
the canals, the windmills and the wooden 
shoes. They are all here as advertised, and 
they color the lives of the people as they do the 
landscape of the country. To the eye they 
are artistic and beautiful, but in practice they 
are common, plain necessities, and in these 
signs the Dutch have conquered. 



The Great River 

KoENIGSWINTER, GERMANY, August 7. 

The river Rhine is in many respects the 
greatest river in the world. It is greatest in 
commercial importance, historical interest and 
artistic development. It has been the line of 
battle in Europe for centuries, since Caesar 
first crossed the stream and met the original 
Germans. After that time it was the frontier 
of the Roman empire until Rome fell, and 
then it became the object for which Europe 
fought. The Germans and the French met 
on the Rhine, the other "civilized countries" 
got in the game, and the valley was filled with 
feudal counts and princes who sometimes took 
one side and sometimes the other, whichever 
seemed to offer them the best pickings. The 
broad and deep stream was a highway of 
commerce, and the old champions of chivalry, 
with whom robbery and murder were the 
principal business, built castles on the hills, 
and whenever they saw a merchant with a rich 
caravan of goods, down they would swoop on 

(96) 



THE GREAT RIVER 97 

him, grab his valuables and kill the defenders. 
These adventures and wars were what the 
world called history, and during the Middle 
Ages the place where hell was continually 
breaking out was along this beautiful valley. 
The use of gunpowder finally put an end to 
knights in armor, and the Germans and the 
French struggled for the Rhine. Napoleon 
conquered the valley, organized it into a re- 
public, and finally annexed it to France. The 
Allies conquered Napoleon and restored the 
Prussian king and the petty princes to their 
possessions. The war of 1870 between Ger- 
many and France pushed the boundary a con- 
siderable distance west, and made the Rhine 
valley all German, under the newly organized 
empire. 



Jiiiuiuiuoiimimiit 



Most rivers begin in a small way, from 
springs, creeks and little streams. The Rhine 
is the outlet of Lake Constance, and rushes out 
of that inland sea a great river ready-made, 
and begins with a magnificent waterfall 
second only to Niagara. It is a wide, deep 
river, and as soon as it emerges from the Swiss 
mountains becomes the great highway through 



98 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

Germany and Holland to the ocean. Along its 
banks are timber, coal and iron, great cities 
with factories, and fertile lands tilled to the 
utmost point. The freight rate is the lowest 
possible, and the productive value of the 
country is increased by the ease and cheap- 
ness with which the markets of the world are 
reached. Steamboats and barges go up and 
down in much greater numbers than do the 
freight trains of America's greatest railroad. 
For much of its length the banks are walled, 
and the cities, towns and villages are almost 
continuous. In width the river is from 500 
to 1500 feet, and it is about 550 miles long. 
The last 360 miles, from Manheim to the 
German ocean, has a channel of not less than 
thirty feet in depth, and in that 360 miles 
the fall is only 280 feet, the last hundred miles 
only 33 feet. 



So much for the Rhine from a business 
viewpoint. This little town of Koenigswinter 
is on "the picturesque Rhine," at the foot of 
the Drachenfels, the last of the big hills or 
mountains by which the Rhine flows in its 
course from Manheim to Cologne. We stopped 



THE GREAT RIVER 99 

at the little city of Bonn, seat of a good uni- 
versity, and an old town. Beethoven was born 
in Bonn, and we visited the little house he 
selected for that event in his life. It was most 
interesting to see the things used by the great 
composer, among them the original drafts of 
many of his great works. Beethoven's folks 
were poor, and when only a boy he played the 
pipe organ at the church and was in the Bonn 
string band. When 22 years of age he went to 
Vienna, where he was taken care of financially 
by the Austrian emperor. He never married. 
He and a countess fell in love with each other, 
but her folks did not approve of her marrying 
a musician. Beethoven's father sang tenor 
and his grandfather had led the Bonn brass 
band, and Beethoven himself was giving 
lessons. So they could not marry, though I 
don't see why the countess did not arrange 
it later when Beethoven became famous. But 
he was very deaf and probably very cranky, 
for he was a great musician, and perhaps the 
Lady Amelia backed out herself. 



This is what is called the picturesque Rhine, 
for here the river runs through some German 



100 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

mountains, which rise almost abruptly from 
the banks. The mountain-sides are cultivated 
as we do first-bottom land. The principal prod- 
uct is the grape, which gets just the proper 
sunlight on these mountain-sides to make its 
juice command more money than the wine 
from the back country. There are also many 
truck farms, small pastures, patches of al- 
falfa and wheat, all tilted up from the river 
at an angle of 45 to 90 degrees. The roads are 
good and white, the fields just now are green, 
the sky is a blue like the sky in Italy and 
Kansas. The little towns with their white- 
washed houses and red-tiled roofs cluster 
every mile or so along the river, and the view 
from the mountains or from the river is one 
that makes the tickle come around the heart. 
In this beautiful spot where nature and man 
have both been busy for so many hundred 
years we are spending a few days for rest. 



xnniiiiiiioiuinnniic 



Of course I climbed the Drachenfels, the 
mountain which looms up like a sentinel and 
has on its top a ruined castle with a view and 
a legend. Byron told of the great view, and 
every tourist who stops has to climb the 




THE POET BYRON BUILDING CASTLES 



THE GREAT RIVER 101 



mountain. So we climbed. Mr. Byron was 
right this time, for the view is grand. Ordi- 
narily I take little stock in Byron's fits over 
scenery. He traveled through Europe and had 
thrills over some very ordinary things. Byron 
could take a few drinks and then reel off some 
verses which gave an old ruin or a tumble- 
down castle a reputation which it will use 
forever as a bait for tourists. But this time 
Byron was right, for the panorama of the 
Rhine valley, made up of the river, the hills, 
the sky, the shades of growing green, the white- 
and-red towns, and the boats as noiseless as 
birds, is one worth more than the twenty-five 
American cents it takes to make the climb on a 
cog-wheel railroad. 



iraimnitutinuuirtB 



The ruined castle, which stands about 1,000 
feet above the Rhine and yet so near it seems 
that one could throw a stone from the parapet 
into the river, was occupied by a line of the 
fiercest gentlemen that ever robbed an inno- 
cent traveler. For several hundred years no 
one was safe to go this way unless he paid 
the robber barons, who had a sort of con- 
federacy or union, in which the Count of 



102 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

Drachenfels was one of the main guys. The 
name means the dragon's rock, and comes 
from the fact that a Dragon once resided in a 
cave near the top. The legend says that it 
was customary among the old heathen to feed 
prisoners to the Dragon, so he would look 
pleasant and not roar at night. Returning 
from a trip into the west they brought a 
number of captives, among them a beautiful 
Christian maiden. The heathen young men 
all wanted the girl, so the wise chief decided 
that she should be given to the Dragon, thus 
preventing a scrap among the brethren and 
paying special tribute to the Drag. They 
formed a procession and marched to the big 
rock where they were accustomed to lay out 
provisions for his nibs. The beautiful girl was 
bound hand and foot, covered with flowers, and 
then the crowd got back to see the Dragon do 
the rest. The Dragon came out roaring like a 
stuck pig, but when the girl held out a crucifix 
toward him he bolted, ran and jumped from 
the rock into the river. The best-looking 
young man among the heathen then rushed 
forward and released the lady, married her, 
and they lived happily ever afterward, — so 



THE GREAT RIVER 103 



the legend says. And there is no reason to 
doubt the legend, for there is the rock, there 
is the river into which the Dragon leaped, and 
he never did come back. 



Along the Rhine 

KOENIGSWXNTER, August 8. 

Next to riding on a Dutch canal comes a 
trip on the Rhine. The passenger steamers and 
motor-boats go up and down this part of the 
Rhine like street cars. Every boat is comfort- 
ably equipped with refreshment parlors and 
restaurants, and the waiters keep trying to 
please the thirsty traveler by offering him wine 
and beer. It is hard on a Kansan. What 
these Germans need is a governor and an at- 
torney-general and a row over the joint 
question. Poor Germans! they do not know 
it, and they keep right on drinking beer and 
growing fat and looking happy. Aside from 
this unfortunate habit, which does not seem 
to hurt them as it ought to, the Germans are 
a fine lot of folks. They are immensely proud 
of their country, which is a trifle hard on us 
modest Americans. They really believe Ger- 
many can lick the world, and they have a 
notion that there is no nation so progressive 
as theirs. In some respects they are right, 

(104) 



ALONG THE RHINE 105 

and in many phases of business and scientific 
advancement the Germans lead the world. 

I am inclined to attribute this to their 
public-school system, which is superior to ours 
in some respects. Without going into an ex- 
tended argument on the subject, I will ex- 
plain my reason for this opinion. The German 
system of education is very rigid for the boys 
and girls. The discipline in the common 
schools is military. The children go to school 
more months in the year and they are com- 
pelled to learn. There is no foolishness, no 
excuses from fond parents, no late parties, no 
indifference, no any -thing -to -get -through. 
The German teachers are not content with 
getting the children to pass, but they insist 
they shall know their studies. This severe 
training is kept up until the boy or girl goes 
to the university, and then discipline is re- 
laxed and he or she can do about as they 
please so far as personal conduct is concerned. 
In America the parents and the government 
let the little folks do as they please outside of 
short school hours, and then tighten up the 
disc'pline in high school and university. Our 
scheme doesn't work well. Our grade schools 



106 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

turn out indifferent scholars and boys and 
girls who have not been trained to study. 
Our course of study is fixed to make it easy, 
when every one knows that hard work is 
needed to develop character. If the Germans 
go ahead of the Americans in the next genera- 
tion it will be because their school system is 
better than ours, because it trains the children 
better for the work to come. The Germans 
think just as much of their children as do the 
Americans of theirs, but they do not spoil 
them, — which is a great American fault and 
which counts against the children ever after- 
ward. 

We rode on the boat to Godesberg, and 
Rolandseck and Heisterbach, and Johannis- 
berg, and Niersteiner, and all the other places 
which are recorded on the wine-card at a 
Kansas City hotel. The very names are 
enough to make a Kansas man file an informa- 
tion with the county attorney. Each town has 
its brand of wine, its old castles, its flourishing 
business, its comfortable hotels, and its legends 
of olden times. Most of the legends tell of the 



ALONG THE RHINE 107 

triumph of True Love, but here is an excep- 
tion: 



An old knight whose castle at Schoenberg 
was an important place in the feudal system 
of tax collection, had seven beautiful daugh- 
ters. He died ; these seven girls ruled in the 
castle, and all they cared for was a good time. 
They went hunting, gave late supper parties, 
and were much talked about ; but their beauty 
and the castle of their inheritance kept them 
popular with the men. Many knights asked 
them to marry, but each and every suitor was 
given the merry ha-ha by the maiden he 
sought. Knights even fought and killed each 
other, disputing as to the merits of the sisters, 
and the ladies made such funerals the scenes 
of great enjoyment. Finally the knights had 
a mass meeting, and resolved that the seven 
sisters be required to select husbands. When 
th's news was conveyed to the sisters they 
said this was just what they wanted. They 
proposed that they would give a picnic, to 
which all the would-be husbands should be in- 
vited, and after lunch they would announce 



108 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

the knights of their choice. The picnic day 
came, and it rained in the morning as it always 
does on picnic days. The knights came with 
their swords and their lunch-baskets and stood 
around throwing balls for the cigars and shak- 
ing for the lemonade, until the skies cleared 
and it was announced that the seven sisters 
would be in at once or as soon as they had 
finished dressing. Then came another hour's 
wait. Suddenly a boat appeared around the 
bend, and in it were the Seven, all decked out 
with big hats and rhinestone buckles. The 
eldest sister stood up in the boat, screaming 
as it rocked, and said: "We don't care to 
marry any of you country jakes. We are go- 
ing to Cologne to visit a cousin, and there we 
propose to have a good time without being 
obliged to throw down some knight who wants 
a bride and a meal ticket every so often." 
The other sisters joined in singing the old-time 
version of "Goodby, my lover, goodby," and 
the boat sailed for Cologne. The knights 
cussed, and laid the blame onto each other ; 
but suddenly a storm arose, and the boat 
began to bob around in the waves. The seven 
sisters screamed, but it did them no good. 



ALONG THE RHINE 109 

i ^— — 

The boat upset, and all on board were 
drowned. 

This legend teaches flirtatious young ladies 
not to trifle with the home boys. 

On the spot where the boat went under, 
seven pointed rocks appear above the surface 
of the water even up to today. I saw them, 
and I guess that proves the legend. 



mmiiiruinniwimac 



I have always believed that Kansas people 
make a mistake in neglecting the legend crop. 
For example, a good legend about Elmdale 
Park in Hutchinson would cause thousands of 
people to visit it and pay 10 cents apiece, be- 
sides buying post-cards and printed copies 
of the beautiful story, which might go some- 
thing like this : 

Once upon a time there lived in the First 
Ward a man and his wife who had an only 
daughter. They were the only father and 
mother she had, so honors were about even 
on that point. They loved this Daughter so 
much that when she grew up she was not 
taught to sew or to cook, but to play the piano 
and to sing "Love Me and the World is Mine." 
She was very beautiful as she sat on the front 



110 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

porch reading the latest novel, "The Soul of 
My Soul," while her mother fried the beef- 
steak for supper. Suitors came from far and 
near, one of them a brakeman on the Missouri 
Pacific, and another an assistant chief clerk 
in a hash foundry. But her choice fell upon a 
handsome young knight she met at Elmdale 
Park, who wore an open-faced vest and a 
Brazilian diamond on his shirt front, but who 
had quit school in order to go to work and then 
forgot about it. He saw the clean home and 
he smelled the fried steak and thought the 
young lady did it all, when in fact the young 
lady could not boil an egg. They were married, 
and he at once came to live with his wife's 
folks. The old Father developed an unex- 
pected trait, and insisted that the Bridegroom 
should pay board, which he proudly refused 
to do, took his bride and went to Wxhita. 
There he was offered a position as chamber- 
maid in a livery stable and the Girl found it 
necessary at odd times to do the laundry work 
for a small boarding-house. Thus they lived 
for near y two years, when she borrowed a 
postage stamp and wrote home: "I have a 
Divorce and two children." The father and 




THE HANDSOME KNIGHT SHE MET IN ELMDALE PARK 



ALONG THE RHINE 111 

mother promptly sent her enough money to 
pay her fare, and she returned to the castle 
of her childhood. But she had learned a 
lesson. The next time she got married she did 
not pick up a friend in Elmdale Park, but 
made him show her his bank book and his re- 
ceipt for dues in the Modern Woodmen. At 
the place in Elmdale Park where she met her 
first soul-mate she planted a cottonwood tree, 
which is there yet, and under its shade lovers 
now meet, remember this legend and buy post- 
cards which tell the story. 



In German Towns 

Cologne, Germany, August 9. 
This is the big town of the lower Rhine 
country in Germany, though it has rivals 
which may sometime take the title away. It 
is also the old town, and there have been 
many hot times in its history. It was started 
in the first century of the Christian era as a 
colony by Aggripina, the mother of Nero, and 
a lot of Roman soMiers were given extra rights 
for settling in the new town. A couple of 
hundred years later a bridge was built across 
the Rhine, and Cologne became of commerical 
importance. When Christianity was extended 
to this sect 'on it was made the seat of a bishop 
and then of an archbishop. It grew rapidly 
and was independent in its tendencies, so 
when the break-up came of the old Roman 
empire it became a free city, and with some 
bossing by the archbishop the people ruled, 
that is, the wealthier and more important, a 
sort of aristocracy. Napoleon annexed Co- 
logne to France, but when he was overthrown 

(112) 



IN GERMAN TOWNS 113 

the city was handed over to the king of Prussia, 
and it has been Prussian ever since. In the 
last hundred years Cologne has developed as 
the great jobbing and commercial city of this 
section. It is full of quaint old houses, narrow 
streets, medieval architecture, and has the 
best cathedral in Europe. Dutch and German 
cathedrals are generally Protestant, but the 
Cologne cathedral is Catholic. When the 
Reformation came the Lutherans especially 
enjoyed capturing a cathedral, tearing down 
the images and statues, destroying all the 
artistic beauty they could, and making the 
house of God as plain and uncomfortable as 
possible. On the other hand, the Catholics 
believed in beautifying and adorning their 
churches. The present-day Protestants doubt- 
less wish their predecessors had been less 
zealous and that the beautiful decorations and 
paintings had not been defaced by whitewash. 
The Cologne cathedral is the finest specimen 
of Gothic architecture in the world. Of course 
it is in the shape of a cross, and is 157 yards 
long, 94 yards wide, 201 feet to the roof, 357 
feet to the tower over the center, and the 
towers are 515 feet high. These figures give 



114 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

no idea of the impressive and imposing in- 
terior ; and the exterior, which is a profusion 
of turrets, gargoyles, cornices, galleries and 
other decorations, makes the visitor catch his 
breath as he looks at this great structure. The 
foundation of this cathedral was laid in 1248 
and the work was completed thirty years ago ; 
so there was no rush about the job. 



inunwiicumiiuwie 



Twenty-five miles below Cologne is Dussel- 
dorf , also on the Rhine, and the place where 
the iron and coal development of Germany 
seeks its market. You know what iron and 
coal did for Pittsburg, and it is the same with 
Diisseldorf. It is the growing city of the sec- 
tion, and threatens to pass Cologne. As 
Diisseldorf is largely modern, having de- 
veloped since the days of railroads and steel 
bridges, it has wide streets, beautiful build- 
ings, and its architecture is of the present 
generation. Diisseldorf is noted for its mu- 
nicipal ownership, and is often called a model 
city. The town owns the street cars, the light 
system, the docks on the river, the water 
plant, a pawn-shop and a lot of other things, 
including a couple of breweries. Municipal 



IN GERMAN TOWNS 115 

ownership comes easier in the Old World than 
in the New. It was formerly the custom of the 
government to own everything, and to lay 
out parks and provide utilities for the people, 
who were then too poor to do much them- 
selves. So the modern European government, 
which is largely popular, succeeds to the power 
of the ancient monarchical rule, and provides 
the big things for the people. A strong-handed 
ruler who can condemn private property, and 
wisely put the good of the entire community 
above the property and welfare of individuals, 
does these public works much better than our 
own municipal governments, which have re- 
stricted powers and which have to do what the 
people want rather than tell the people what 
they ought to do. Generally speaking the 
public ownership of utilities is a good thing, 
provided the government has the power and 
the integrity to do the business right. Dussel- 
dorf has a mayor and twelve salaried alder- 
men, a common council of 56 members, and 
over 5,000 city employes. 



One great difference between Germans and 
Americans is the regard in which they hold the 



116 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

law. Unfortunately, our new civilization has 
brought about a general feeling that the law 
is meant for the other fellows and we obey 
it if we have to. For that reason it is easier 
for a German municipality to manage business 
than it is for an American — and especially 
for a Kansan. Imagine what would happen 
in Hutchinson if the city owned a couple of 
breweries like the city of Diisseldorf. The next 
spring election the candidates would be run- 
ning on the beer issue, and there would be all 
kinds of opinions. In Diisseldorf they hire 
expert brewers, sell the product, and the city 
takes a good profit. In Hutchinson the First 
Ward would be kicking because they didn't 
like the head brewer, the Sixth Ward would 
demand a reduction in the price of beer, and 
the Third Ward would make the candidates 
pledge themselves to another beer garden in 
the south part of town, where it would be poor 
business. The final result would be that 
Mayor Vincent and Dr. Winans and the rest 
of the commission would be charged with 
favoritism and defeated for reelection, and 
their successors would make beer at a loss and 
nobody would be satisfied. The curse of 



IN GERMAN TOWNS 117 



American municipal affairs is this playing of 
politics with every petty question. The Ger- 
mans take the wiser method of cutting out 
politics, selecting their best men for public 
office, giving great respect to them personally, 
and accepting the laws they enact. When the 
mayor of Dusseldorf conies out for a walk 
everybody he meets takes off his hat and 
salutes. In our country everybody the mayor 
meets has a kick about something, and as for 
taking off his hat to the mayor— the Amer- 
ican citizen would see him in Halifax first. 



iwuiiuinuiuuiiiuic 



A Kansas man, Clarence Price, of Pitts- 
burg, stirred up all kinds of trouble in the 
German empire recently. Price has a moving- 
picture show, travel scenes and such, and is in 
Europe to get some of the best and see the 
local color. He thought it would be a fine 
thing to compliment the German army with a 
picture ; so he had his machine at one of the 
forts of Berlin taking views of the drill of an 
artillery squad. The police saw him, and he 
nearly spent the night in the Hotel de Jail. 
It was all the American Consul and the Asso- 
ciated Press could do to save him, for the 



118 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

police believed he was a French spy, and as 
they could not understand the Pittsburg 
language and Price could not talk their Ger- 
man, it was only with difficulty that he got 
word to his friends and was finally released. 
A German jail is not fitted up for pleasure 
and comfort, but to make people sorry they 
get there, and as the picture machine had been 
confiscated there was not even the consola- 
tion for the Kansas showman of being able 
to present to the American public the sight 
of German justice administered on the spot. 



itmujnramuijwn 



Everywhere in Germany the load the people 
are carrying is militarism. The young men of 
the country lose several of the best years of 
their life in their army service, and heavy 
taxes burden business and industry. The 
people are patriotic, and this army is neces- 
sary, for there is always the prospect of a 
war, and of course they want to lick the other 
fellow. But the newspapers are praising Taft 
and urging that arbitration and disarmament 
are practicable if the course marked out by 
the United States is followed. It makes an 
American really proud of his country and his 



IN GERMAN TOWNS 119 

President when he hears the praise that is 
everywhere bestowed on both for taking the 
lead in the most important movement of the 
times. There has been a marked change in 
sentiment toward Americans among the edu- 
cated and upper classes the last few years. 
The poor people always were strong for us. 
But the business men and the newspapers, as 
well as the brass collars, sneered at Ameri- 
cans as mere money - makers. McKinley 
brought the change when the United States 
jumped into a war with Spain to help Cuba. 
Dewey at Manila pounded it into their heads 
with language the Europeans could under- 
stand. Roosevelt's dashing policies and his 
stand for peace between Japan and Russia 
impressed them wonderfully. And now Taft's 
policy of arbitration instead of war is receiv- 
ing the commendation of uppers and lowers, 
and they recognize the statesmanship in the 
treaties. To use one of Roosevelt's favorite 
words, it is bully to be an American and travel 
in Europe, just to see how much better it is 
at home and to feel the respect paid to our 
great nation and its leaders. 



Arriving in Paris 

Paris, August 11. 
Paris is a good deal like a circus, a three- 
ringed one which strains the rubber in your 
neck trying to see all you can before the acts 
change. Even the arrival is theatrical. As 
the train pulled into the Gare du Nord, after 
making the last forty-five miles in fifty-five 
minutes, I passed our hand baggage out 
through the open car window to a porter, and, 
going out the door myself, told him in a con- 
fident tone "voiture," which is the foolish 
French word for cab. He understood, piloted 
us through the big station and called a little 
victoria with a seat for two. The driver wears 
a white celluloid plug hat and a red face. He 
drives a horse which probably fought with 
Napoleon. He nods assent to the name of the 
hotel as I mispronounce it, takes our three 
grips on his seat, and away we go down the 
street, the Lord and the cabby only knowing 
where. On the sidewalks are busy people 
talking French, walking French, and gesturing 

(120) 



ARRIVING IN PARIS 121 

French. The stores and shops are attractive, 
for the French shopkeeper puts his best stuff 
in the front window, whether he is selling hats 
or sausages. Big busses, with people on top as 
well as inside, motor cars and motor busses 
with horns and honks, loaded wagons drawn 
by heavy Norman horses, street sweepers 
with brooms, policemen in red-and-blue uni- 
forms, maids in cap and gown, porters with 
their work shirts outside their trousers, restau- 
rants and little cafes with tables and chairs on 
the sidewalk and French men slipping ab- 
sinthe or cold coffee, buildings almost uni- 
formly six stories high, built with courts in 
the center which are often seen through open 
doors, and everybody talking, gesticulating 
and screaming in a language you cannot under- 
stand, — that is the confusion through which 
we drive for two miles and for which journey 
the cabman takes off his hat when I pay him 
35 cents, which includes a 4-cent tip for him- 
self. The hotel porter, or chief clerk, the head 
waiter, the pages, the manager and several 
assistants meet us at the hotel door, and in 
response to inquiries assure us that there is a 
bath-room in the hotel and that they have a 



122 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

"very nice" room. As an additional and de- 
cisive argument why we should stop there the 
chief clerk asserts that they have ice-water, 
and the entire company falls back in an 
ecstatic gesture which evidently means "What 
do you think of that?" We examine the room, 
agree upon a price, and then and not till then 
do we dismiss the cabman and proceed to get 
settled. We are in Paris, the dirtiest and 
prettiest city in the world. 

Of course the first thing to do is to get out 
and see the sights, but of course it is not. The 
first thing is to get the mail and the next is to 
clean up. After traveling eight hours on a fast 
train through a country which has had no 
rain for two months, one really does not care 
for the wonderful things which the world talks 
about. Then comes the French dinner, which 
is something of an affair. A dinner in France 
goes like this : Soup, fish or eggs, veal, beef or 
mutton, and a vegetable and salad, cakes or 
tarts, fruit or ice. No coffee is served with 
the meal, but it is usually taken later and is an 
additional charge. Any attempt to vary this 
bill of fare is regarded as insane. I tried my 



ARRIVING IN PARIS 123 



best to get string beans served with my veal 
course, but I couldn't. The waiter said " Oui," 
then went and called the other waiters, and I 
could see them looking at the crazy American. 
That made me persistent, and I sent for the 
head waiter and told him I wanted beans — 
and I knew they had them ready. The head 
waiter said "Oui" and disappeared, and soon 
the clerks from the office strolled by and 
looked in. By this time the veal was cold, 
and I realized that any further attempt might 
result in calling the police, so I gave it up. No 
one refused to get my beans, but each time I 
was told "oui," which means "yes" and is 
pronounced "we," and each time nothing 
further happened except the sympathizing 
and curious mob. Once I traveled in Europe 
with a friend named McGregor, who wanted 
his coffee served with his meal, as it is in 
Illinois. He was willing to pay any price and 
he would put in his order hours ahead of meal- 
time. Did he get it? Certainly not. Coffee 
is not served with the dinner in France, and 
that is all there is to it. 

American travelers have won on one point — 
ice. Every hotel and restaurant which caters 



124 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

to American trade advertises ice-water. No 
Frenchman will drink it, but in some way the 
managers found that ice could be procured in 
the summer-time, and as a special favor to 
Americans, at a small increase in rates, the 
hotels give us ice-water. 

No real French hotel has a bath-room, to 
say nothing of a room with bath. I suppose 
the French, who look clean, either go to the 
creek or swim in the washbowl. Again the 
American influence is felt. First-class hotels 
now have bath-rooms, or a bath-room, and 
when it is used the charge appears on the bill, 
so much for a "grand bath." 



jitiiNiiiitiaiuiimimc 



After dinner we went for a walk on the 
boulevards, just as every Frenchman who can, 
does every evening. The boulevards are the 
wide streets which run through the city in 
different directions, and were constructed at 
first for military purposes. In the little narrow 
streets of old Paris it was easy to start a 
revolution by merely throwing a barricade 
across a "rue," prying up cobblestones for 
weapons and stationing a few old women on 
the housetops with pots of scalding water, 



ARRIVING IN PARIS 125 

which are harder on soldiers than leaden 
bullets. The revolution habit got so strong in 
Paris that the boulevards were constructed 
so the soldiers could march through the city 
without being stopped by barricades and 
mobs. They are likely to be used for that 
purpose again sometime, but just now the 
boulevards are largely for parades in which 
French millinery and hosiery are placed on 
exhibition every afternoon and evening. The 
sidewalks are occupied by cafes, miles of them 
it seems to me, and for the price of a drink, 
from one cent up, and in substance from coffee 
down, a Frenchman can occupy a comfortable 
seat and observe the wonders of art and 
glimpses of nature which pass by. An Amer- 
ican can do the same, only a real American can 
never put in a whole evening consuming one 
small cup of coffee or whatever other beverage 
he can call for in the French language. 

So when I say we "went for a stroll," we 
did so in the Parisian sense. We went for a 
sit, and let the promenaders do the strolling. 
Here and there an orchestra was playing some 
frivolous air, the street lights flashed from the 
lamp-posts, old ladies sold newspapers and 



126 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

post-cards, and the chattering but musical 
French language filled the air with a suggestive 
touch of the bohemian accent. The later the 
hour the larger the crowd, until midnight 
came, and then the Parisians went to the 
dances and parties and the American visitors 
to the hotels. 



The French Character 

Paris, August 13. 
It is a little hard to take Paris seriously, 
because Paris refuses to take herself that 
way. There is a cheerfulness and a playful- 
ness about the French folks that is hard to 
appreciate from the calm viewpoint of an 
Englishman or American. Our standards are 
different along so many lines that compari- 
sons are unfair without explanations; and 
who cares for long-winded explanations? Ac- 
cording to all the rules that are laid down in 
the books of American etiquette, the people 
of this city should be behind the rest of the 
world in all the serious and necessary works 
of life. And yet French generals have fought 
and defeated larger armies with their French 
soldiers, French engineers have performed 
marvelous feats, French scientists are author- 
ity, French musicians command the highest 
prices, French business men do great things, 
the French people are wealthy, and when it 
comes to literature and art we in America are 

(127) 



128 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

really small potatoes. The fact seems to be 
that the Frenchman who promenades the 
boulevard and the French lady who startles 
the Puritan in us, are accomplishing just as 
much with somewhat limited resources, as 
we do, and we are the greatest people on 
earth as we admit ourselves. 



juiiii.imoiiiiiiiiira: 



The show place in Paris is the parallelo- 
gram along the Seine, consisting of the 
Champs-Elysees, the Place de la Concorde, 
the Tuileries gardens, and the Louvre art 
gallery. This district is about three miles 
long and averages a quarter of a mile wide. 
It contains the Champs with beautiful gar- 
dens and woods intersected by wide avenues, 
then the Place de la Concorde, one of the 
most beautiful squares in the world, the 
Tuileries' commodious public playgrounds, 
with ponds and fountains ; palaces with pic- 
tures, statues and monuments historical and 
allegorical; and the end is in the Louvre, 
which is said to be the greatest collection of 
art in existence. There is not a chord in the 
human mind and heart which is not touched 
beautifully and effectively by some part of 



THE FRENCH CHARACTER 129 

this magnificent public place, which belongs 
to the people and is used by them. The more 
one thinks over this feature, the more he must 
realize that although the French do not con- 
form to our methods they are certainly able 
to reach many of our best ideals, and whether 
they go around or cross-lots to get there de- 
pends upon the viewpoint of the critic. 



tmanxmam 



The old Bourbon kings of France under- 
stood their people. While they made it hard 
for the common people to get a living they 
made it easy for them to have a good time. 
Whenever the public kicked on taxes, the 
king laid out a new park and gave a fete with 
free drinks and fireworks. The Bourbons 
would probably be reigning yet if Louis the 
Sixteenth and his wife, Marie Antoinette, had 
had any sense. Antoinette was German and 
did not understand the French ways, Louis 
was a poor politician, and when a storm came 
they lost their heads figuratively and then lost 
them actually. The republic lasted a few 
years and then Napoleon, who was as great 
a player to the grandstand as he was a general, 
became emperor, and only his foolish desire 



130 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

to conquer everybody lost him his job. The 
Bourbons came back as kings, but they had 
no sense. The French people want to be 
fooled, and these kings couldn't fool anybody. 
So there was another republic, and then Na- 
poleon the Third came to the front on the 
reputation of his uncle, the great Napoleon. 
He worked the French people to a finish, 
built palaces, boulevards and playgrounds 
until he had everybody for him, and then got 
captured by the Germans, lost his reputation 
and throne, and France became a republic 
for the third time. This was in 1871, and 
the republic has lasted forty years, much 
longer than expected, but in fact the govern- 
ment has been wisely conducted and has un- 
derstood the French character well. There 
is another Napoleon, by the name of Victor, 
who is likely to come back, and sometime 
when the government does an imprudent thing 
the people will remember the good old times 
of Napoleon and return to a monarchy. Vic- 
tor married the daughter of the old Emperor 
of Belgium, and has a big campaign fund. 



jlimiwiunHunt 



Of course everybody knows these facts, 
and I have recited them to illustrate the 



THE FRENCH CHARACTER 131 

French national character. The French are 
not false, but they are fickle. They like a 
change, a novelty, an excitement. A revo- 
lution, or a new government, appeals to their 
sense of enjoyment just as does a new pic- 
ture, a new hat, or a new coiffure. In spite 
of this trait they have done great things in 
all the great lines of advancement and prog- 
ress. Theoretically they should be failures, 
but in fact they are successful. They con- 
sider Paris the greatest city of the world, and 
the way the people of other countries come 
here and add to the circulating medium seems 
to prove they are right. They practically 
refuse to learn any other language, but all 
other countries study French. Thousands of 
English and American Puritans come to Paris 
every year, but the Frenchman who travels 
for pleasure is unknown. Why is it? I give 
it up, unless we have some French tastes along 
with our English standards. 



jimi:iiimt]iniiin.:m 



The French people are the most temperate, 
most economical and most saving of any of 
the peoples of Europe — or America. With 
all their fun they love money, and never for- 



13£ A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

get the necessity of having some in their old 
age. Get off the Parisian boulevards, which 
are spoiled by visitors, and you see the French, 
pure and simple, though not so very pure and 
not at all simple. They will bargain and 
figure down to the "sou," the popular coin, 
worth two American cents. Every French 
family figures on spending less than it makes, 
and does it. There are practically no sav- 
ings banks and no one much has a bank ac- 
count, but as soon as a little money is saved 
it is invested in government bonds or munic- 
ipal or railroad bonds, which bear four per 
cent interest. Every family has government 
bonds, and this habit of investing in securi- 
ties is the reason which makes France so great 
and strong financially. The people pile their 
savings into the government treasury, the 
only bank they know. The family, which is 
always small in France, must save for the 
daughter's dot, or she will never be married, 
and for the last years of the parents' lives. 
There are practically no abjectly poor people 
in France. It is not fashionable to be poor, 
and French men and French women must be 
fashionable. 



THE FRENCH CHARACTER 133 

The Place de la Concorde is a wonderful 
square, larger than a couple of our city blocks. 
In the center is an obelisk, presented by 
Mohammed Ali when he was viceroy of 
Egypt and before the bargain sale of obelisks 
took place. It is a block of red granite, 75 
feet high and covered with hieroglyphics 
which tell the deeds of an Egyptian gentle- 
man named Rameses. The obelisk is sur- 
rounded by large fountains with mermaids 
and Tritons and dolphins spouting water into 
lower basins. Around the square are statues 
representing the eight principal cities of 
France. Since the monuments were erected 
one of these cities, Strassburg, has been taken 
by the Germans. This was forty years ago, 
but the monument still stands, and it is 
draped in mourning. In any other country 
the statue would have been quietly removed, 
but the French are not built that way. 
They hang their wreaths around Strassburg, 
swear vengeance on the Germans, and have 
a good time. 



aumiuatjniumijD! 



This mourning habit is very popular in 
Paris. The ladies who are called upon to 



134 A JAYHAWTCER IN EUROPE 

mourn do so with proper regard for appear- 
ances. As near as I can figure it out the 
death of a second cousin puts all the female 
members of a family into deep black. A 
mourning -gown with a very hobble skirt, 
with the hoisery and millinery to match and 
with plumes and decollete neck to strengthen 
the effect, — well, it does not detract from the 
human interest one naturally takes at such 
a time. 



The Latin Quarter 

Paris, August 15. 
As everyone knows, the city of Paris is 
cut into two parts by the river Seine, which 
runs through it from east to west and with its 
curves is about seven miles in length within 
the town. The river is crossed by many 
bridges, all stone and substantial, many orna- 
mented by statues. Little steamboats run 
up and down like street cars, and the banks 
are covered with massive stone walls. About 
half-way through the city are two islands, one 
called the Cite and the other the Isle of St. 
Louis. The Cite is the most ancient part 
of Paris, and was a town in the time of Csesar. 
The coming of Christianity was marked by 
the erection of a church, and about the 12th 
century by the present cathedral Notre- 
Dame, one of the famous buildings in Europe, 
but not one of the finest cathedrals. By this 
time the city had spread out on the banks, 
and the organization of France into a king- 
dom with Paris as the capital was followed by 

(135) 



136 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

a removal of the royal residence and of most 
of the activities to the sides of the stream. 
On the south side developed the university, 
the artists' studios, and eventually the mili- 
tary establishments. Big business, the large 
residences and industrial enterprises went to 
the north bank. The Latin Quarter, as the 
educational and artistic section is known, on 
the south, while equipped with large stores, 
palaces and public buildings, is a most in- 
teresting and quaint place, and though still 
Bohemian is very respectable, from a Parisian 
viewpoint. 



nimiimiinitimiinin 



The University of Paris, the original part 
of which was the Sorbonne, now an immense 
structure, has about 15,000 students. It dif- 
fers from American universities in many re- 
spects. There are no recitations. The in- 
struction is given by lectures, and a famous 
authority on law, or philosophy or science, 
can lecture to hundreds as easily as to a small 
class. There are no dormitories, no frater- 
nities, no football clubs, no spring parties, 
no classes, no sports, no colors, no badges, 
none of the essential parts of American higher 



THE LATIN QUARTER 137 

ii i . . 

education. Students of any age or previous 
training may enroll and become members of 
the University, go to the lectures they desire, 
or not go at all if they prefer. The public 
can attend the lectures and the University 
is open to women, though the proportion of 
women students is not large. The most effi- 
cient instruction and the greatest sources of 
information are open to the students — if they 
desire. The Sorbonne was erected in 1629 
by Cardinal Richelieu, and named for Robert 
de Sorbonne, who started a school for the 
education of poor boys in theology about 
1250. It has been rebuilt and enlarged until 
it is a vast pile 800 feet long and 300 feet 
wide. This building houses the schools in 
literature and science, the schools of law and 
medicine occupying buildings near by. 



jiiniiiiuurii'ii'ujQC 



Although the students at the University 
of Paris do not have the fun in athletics and 
society that the students do in the Univer- 
sity of Kansas, they have a good time in the 
French way. The quarter is filled with cafes, 
large and small, where students and artists 
congregate and eat, drink and make merry. 



1S8 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

The back room of the cafe is something of a 
club, and discussions on art and science 
mingle with the perfume of tobacco and fer- 
mented grape- juice. While there is a lack 
of co-eds there is no scarcity of ladies, who 
constitute a part of the course taken by many 
of the students, not leading to a degree, not 
even to matrimony. All of this, which would 
be regarded with horror in Lawrence, is quite 
the thing in Paris and seems to work out most 
satisfactorily to the University authorities, 
for even the professors do not hesitate to 
mingle with their students at the evening 
sessions in the joints of the Latin Quarter. 
The men take examinations and degrees and 
go their way to promote the advancement of 
learning, while the ladies stay and aid in the 
instruction of the next generation of students. 
The original of the old college story took 
place in the Sorbonne. A father who had 
graduated many years before came for a visit 
with his son, who had matriculated as a stu- 
dent. The son had gone to the same lodging- 
place which his father had occupied in the 
years gone by. The old man was recalling 
his student days, looking over the familiar 



THE LATIN QUARTER 139 

place, noticing the changes and the old scenes. 
"The same old beamed ceiling, where I 
carved my name, and here it is," he ex- 
claimed with delight. "The same old view 
from the window. The same old furniture — " 
and just then the back door opened and a 
dashing lady appeared. "Same old girl," he 
cried with rapture. The boy tried to ex- 
plain that she was a friend of a friend. " Same 
old story," was the happy comment, "Same 
old game." 



liliiiiininci'iNii ic 



Near the Sorbonne is the Pantheon, origi- 
nally built for a church, in the shape of a 
Greek cross, located on a hill which is the 
highest place on the south side of the river, 
and with a noble dome that can be seen for 
many miles. This is a new building, having 
been constructed in the eighteenth century. 
It was dedicated to Saint Genevieve, the 
patron saint of Paris. The revolution con- 
verted it into a memorial temple and named 
it the Pantheon. It has been a church a 
couple of times since then, but is now not 
used for religious purposes. It is the bury- 
ing-place of great Frenchmen. Here are 



140 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

buried Victor Hugo, Mirabeau, Rousseau, 
Carnot, and others distinguished in literature 
and statecraft. You can see the last rest- 
ing-place of these great men by securing an 
order from the Government or by tipping 
the custodian : the latter way I always find 
the easiest and best. The Pantheon is beau- 
tifully decorated, and the interior with Corin- 
thian columns and mural paintings is most 
effective. If it makes any difference to these 
men where they are buried they should be 
glad, for it is the finest memorial building in 
Europe. 



That leads me to a rather grave subject. 
As a matter of fact, funerals are very im- 
portant events in France. Three or four di- 
rectors in black clothes and three-cornered 
hats march ahead, and the hearse is heavily 
draped. If the departed was a man of prom- 
inence there are a number of orations deliv- 
ered, the crowd goes away excited over the 
condition of the republic, and is likely to 
break windows and show its feeling toward 
the political opponents of the deceased. When 
Zola was buried a hundred thousand people 



THE LATIN QUARTER 141 

marched in the procession, and there were a 
number of street fights and duels as a climax. 



iiniiniinininiunimc 



But the biggest thing in the Latin Quarter 
so far as American tourists are concerned is 
the Bon Marche, I suppose the largest retail 
general store in the world. In most ways it 
is like our department stores, and announces 
that it has made its success by reason of faith- 
ful dealings with the public and by adver- 
tising. It has been running about fifty years ; 
the original proprietor is dead, but the busi- 
ness moves on smoothly. The corporation 
has a method of division of profits among 
employes who have been with the store more 
than ten years. It also pensions its old em- 
ployes, provides lectures and amusements for 
its workers, and has a paternal and cooper- 
ative side that is interesting, although the 
corporation is in fact controlled by a few 
heavy stockholders. 

Somehow I had the idea that our own coun- 
try was the leader in the big department store 
business. But the Bon Marche and others 
in Paris took the idea out of me. It has many 
clerks who speak foreign langauges, and it 



142 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

is said that a native of Timbuctoo or Arkan- 
sas could slip into the store and find some one 
who could speak his language. 

The clerks in the Bon Marche get from $3 
to $6 a week, with the exception of a few who 
have special qualifications. So I guess the 
old-age pension business is necessary. That 
is the ordinary wage paid store clerks in 
Paris. 

It was at the Bon Marche that the ancient 
joke happened to me. I was looking at a 
price-mark, and, not understanding the figure, 
inquired in my pigeon French, "Est sees [6] 
auter set? [7]." The clerk answered "It is 
six." 

My French is a joke. From necessity I 
have learned enough French words to order 
a meal, buy a ticket and ask how much. I 
have found that a good bluff, plenty of signs 
and the throwing in of French and German 
words on the subject generally get about 
what I want. But often I fall down. The 
word for potatoes in French is "pommes." 
I told a waiter I wanted "fried pommes," 
and as the word for cold is "froid," I got cold 
potatoes. 



THE LATIN QUARTER 143 

I went for a ride in the underground tube. 
Bought my tickets and got onto a train I 
knew was in the right direction. It stopped, 
everybody got out, and the porter insisted 
that I go too. I knew something was wrong, 
and I tackled the platform boss with good 
English. He couldn't understand a word, so 
he waved his hands and clawed the air and 
talked French for a couple of minutes. Then 
he tried to walk off, but I hung on. I was 
away down below the surface of the ground 
and didn't even know straight up. "Corre- 
spond" he kept saying, and I assured him 
I would be glad to do so if he would give me 
his address, but first I wanted to know where 
I was "at." I knew he was swearing, but 
it was French swear and I didn't mind. Fi- 
nally he took me by the arm and walked me 
through a couple of passages and pointed to 
another platform. A light broke in on me, 
and I took the train which soon came. I 
learned afterward that "correspond" is French 
for "transfer." 



The Boulevards of Paris 

Paris, August 18. 
The boulevards of Paris are one of the 
wonders of the world. Strictly speaking there 
are a number of broad avenues which are 
called boulevards, but usually "the boule- 
vards" is a phrase which means the one long 
wide boulevard extending for several miles, 
from near the Place de la Concorde to the 
Place de la Bastille, built in a semi-circle on 
the north of the old city and on the fortifica- 
tions which defended the city in the Middle 
Ages. Of course later walls and fortifications 
were built farther out, and the "grand boule- 
vards" are through the heart of the present 
Paris. The boulevard — for it is one continuous 
highway — changes its name every few blocks, 
a fact that is characteristically French and 
somewhat confusing to the stranger. The be- 
ginning is a short distance from the Place de 
la Concorde at the church of the Madeleine, 
the fashionable church of Paris. The building 
is in the style of a Roman temple, and has an 

(144) 



THE BOULEVARDS OF PARIS 145 

imposing colonnade of Corinthian columns. 
The interior decorations are very good, and 
include a large fresco above the altar in which 
Christ, Napoleon and Pope Pius the Seventh 
are classified more or less together. The boule- 
vard is called The Madeleine for about 200 
yards, when the name changes to the Capu- 
cines and sticks for a couple of blocks until 
the grand opera house is reached. Along this 
short stretch are some of the wildest music 
halls and the greatest cafes of the world. The 
greatest is the Cafe de la Paix, where every- 
body who visits Paris goes for at least one 
drink of ginger ale or cold coffee. 

The Opera is the largest theatre in the 
world, covering about three acres. The site 
alone cost $2,000,000 and the building over 
$7,000,000. The materials are marble and 
costly stone, and there are statues of Poetry, 
Music, Drama, Dance, with other figures, me- 
dallions and allegorical statuary until your 
head swims. The front of the roof is sculp- 
tured with gilded masks and with collossal 
groups representing Music and Poetry at- 
tended by the Muses and Goddesses of Fame. 
Apollo with a golden lyre and two Pegasuses 



146 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

occupy the dome. The interior has a grand 
staircase of marble with a rail of onyx, and 
the rest of the interior is be-columned and be- 
frescoed to match. It is the most beautiful 
building in Paris, and could hardly be sur- 
passed if the attempt were made regardless 
of expense. I would not try a detailed de- 
scription, for it would not convey the real 
effect, best described by the word gorgeous. 

From the Opera a street runs southerly 
called the Avenue de FOpera, the great shop- 
ping street of Paris, and at another angle goes 
the Street de la Paix, where the most expensive 
jewelry stores and millinery establishments are 
located. The name of this street is properly 
pronounced de la Pay. 

But the Boulevard continues, no longer the 
Capucines, but the Italiens. Some years ago 
this was the great shopping-place, and it is 
not bad now. As the ladies promenade past 
the Opera and into the Italiens, the skirts 
unconsciously go a little higher. The boule- 
vard proceeds, the next section being called 
the Montmartre. This part interested me a 
great deal. On the rue Montmartre, a side 
street to the right, is the Y. M. C. A., and on 



THE BOULEVARDS OF PARIS 147 

Mt. Montmartre, a little to the left, is the 
Moulin Rouge. 

The Y. M. C. A. in Paris is one of the best 
things in the city, but it does not get much 
newspaper notoriety. It is an English-speak- 
ing organization, with convenient quarters, 
parlor, reception, billiard, smoking- and din- 
ing-rooms. It is one place in Paris where 
there is no cafe or bar, and it is a great help 
to young men from America who are in this 
city by reason of their business or to study or 
to visit the historic places. A great many use 
the Y. M. C. A. facilities, and a membership 
card from Hutchinson or any other associa- 
tion in the world is good for these privileges 
in the heart of Paris. I would recommend to 
every American that when he goes to Paris 
he make his headquarters at the Y. M. C. A., 
but I am not going to count on many of them 
doing it. The Paris atmosphere has the same 
effect on a Y. M. C. A. that a nice, warm 
August sun has on a cake of ice left on the 
sidewalk in Hutchinson. I am not telling what 
I would like to, but I setting down the facts 
as they appear to me. The man who goes to 
Paris and sticks to the Y. M. C. A. as his 



148 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

loafing-place should have his halo ordered at 
once. He has a cinch. 

In the other direction, on Mt. Montmartre, 
is the Moulin Rouge. I do not recommend it 
to nervous men, but it is one of the sights of 
this city. When I was a boy I read somewhere 
about a "gilded palace of sin,"and now I know 
what that means. The cowboys out west used 
to have what they called " f ree-and-easies," 
but the Moulin Rouge is not free. I shut my 
eyes as the dancers loped by until a friend 
said the next dance would be a quadrille. I 
once danced quadrilles myself, and I thought 
there would be a breathing-place. The young 
people arranged themselves as if they were 
going to dance a Virginia Reel, and I could 
feel consciousness returning. The music 
struck up and the quadrille began. At first 
it went as smooth as if it were at the Country 
Club. Then each young lady passed the toe 
of her right foot over the head of her partner. 
Then she turned and pointed the toe of her 
left foot at the chandelier which hung from 
the ceiling. And then came the most wonder- 
ful display of things that are put in the store 




<CW|'KC) 



THE PLAIN QUADRILLE AT THE MOULIN ItOUG] 



THE BOULEVARDS OF PARIS 149 

windows at home and marked "white goods 
sale," or "lingerie." 

It was dreadfully embarrassing to me, as it 
must have been to any other Kansas man 
present, but I braced myself, for I knew the 
worst was yet to come. I felt like getting right 
up on my chair and saying, "Ladies, there are 
gentlemen present." But I didn't, and I have 
been glad ever since, for they might not have 
understood English and thought I wanted a 
partner for the next quadrille. 

Afterwards the proceedings became almost 
immodest. 

So I do not recommend the Moulin Rouge, 
though I fear that this failure on my part will 
not detract from the rush of strangers who are 
visiting in Paris and who might go to the 
Y. M. C. A. But I will say in passing that it 
is no place for a man unless his wife is with 
him, and it is somewhat distracting even then. 



Returning to the boulevard. It changes its 
name to the Poissoniere, and on this part is 
the office of the Matin, the great newspaper, 
which has 750,000 circulation, prints only six 



150 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

pages, and pretends not to care for advertis- 
ing. The Matin differs from most Parisian 
newspapers in really printing news. The 
general run of papers here are purely political, 
and put their editorials on the front page. 
They are very abusive, and the editor has to 
fight frequent duels. The fighting is done with 
pistols at a safe distance, and after an ex- 
change of shots with nobody hurt, the princi- 
pals rush together and clinch, but it is to kiss 
each other on both cheeks and rejoice that 
Honor has been Satisfied. I wouldn't mind the 
dueling, but I positively would not kiss these 
Frenchmen, and so far as I can learn the 
society editresses do not duel. 



lDmiiuiuuuniiiimic 



The Matin is the paper that cleared Dreyfus 
after his trial and conviction a few years ago. 
The story is interesting. Dreyfus was made 
the victim of a conspiracy, and a document 
showing details of the French army was at- 
tributed to him as a German spy. Everybody 
remembers the trial and the fuss at the time. 
It became a contest between the Honor of the 
French Army and Dreyfus. The Matin took 
little part, but, like most of the French, sided 



THE BOULEVARDS OF PARIS 151 

with the army. One evening at a dinner an 
officer of the court exhibited the original of 
the document which Dreyfus had been con- 
victed of writing. Mr. Bueno-Varilla, editor 
of the Matin, was present, and as the paper 
was passed around he looked at it carelessly. 
That night when he reached home he re- 
membered that a few years before this same 
Dreyfus had written him a letter about some 
engineering, and he dug up the letter. The 
handwriting was not at all what he had seen 
that evening. He rushed to the telephone and 
got the official who had shown the document, 
who promised to bring it to him in the morn- 
ing. They compared the spy information and 
the Dreyfus letter which Bueno-Varilla had, 
and they were utterly unlike. Next day the 
Matin printed a photograph copy of the docu- 
ment, and appealed to anyone who knew the 
handwriting to advise the Matin. In a day or 
two a gentleman wrote and said it was the 
writing of a drunken bankrupt army officer, 
named Esterhazey, inclosing letters from the 
latter which proved it. Dreyfus was brought 
back from prison and pardoned, Esterhazey 
skipped the country, and the honor of the 



152 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

French army was flyspecked. All of this be- 
cause Bueno-Varilla happened to keep an old 
letter, and because he owned the Matin. 

The boulevard next becomes the Bonne- 
Nouvelle, and then St. Denis and then St. 
Martin, and has several other names before 
it reaches its end in the Place de la Bastille. 

This place is even more important in French 
history than Independence Hall in ours. The 
14th of July is celebrated every year, just as 
we do the 4th of July as Independence Day, 
because on that date in 1789 the Bastille 
prison was destroyed by an uprising of the 
people which became the French Revolution. 
The Bastille was especially odious because 
political prisoners were confined there, and 
it only took an order from the police to send 
a man or woman to its dungeons. Its use for 
this purpose was so flagrant and so despotic 
that the first fury of the revolution was di- 
rected against its walls, and it was entirely 
destroyed, and the jailers and soldiers defend- 
ing it were killed. The place is now a large 
square surrounded by business houses and 
ornamented by a statue of Liberty on a 
column 150 feet high. From the beginning to 



THE BOULEVARDS OF PARIS 153 

the end of this great boulevard with the many 
names, are places made historic by great men 
and hard fights. Now it is a peaceful, broad 
avenue, with shops and cafes and handsome 
buildings, the promenade-ground for the Pa- 
risian and of tourists from all countries. 



Some French Ways 

Paris, August 20. 
There are practically no athletic sports in 
France, none at all in and around Paris. In 
America the men put in a lot of time talking 
baseball, football, boating and such-like. In 
France the men talk only politics or gossip. 
There are no lodges and no clubs in France. 
This ought to be applauded by the women, but 
as a matter of fact they probably wish the men 
would do a little something in that line. There 
is a secret order or two, but they are not strong 
and not recognized by the orders in other 
countries. Frenchmen do not seem to care for 
athletics of any kind. The nearest approach 
to it is fencing, and the young Frenchman 
learns to use the sword so he can fight duels. 
The popular Hero is not a ball-player nor a 
prize-fighter, but a man who has invented 
something new or who has run off with the 
wife of a friend. They are venturesome and 
personally brave, but they can't stand for 
team work. The attempt has been made to 

(154) 



SOME FRENCH WAYS 155 

introduce a mild form of football, but every 
man on the team wanted to be the star. I 
suppose if the French should organize a base- 
ball club every one of them would insist on 
being pitcher. They will go up in balloons or 
airships with dashing recklessness and are 
brave enough, if that trait is not merely the 
absence of caution and calculation. French 
aviators are numerous and successful, though 
the fatalities are still many. They have shown 
themselves good fighters but not good losers. 
They will quarrel over a trifle and then for- 
give and kiss each other in a manner that 
makes an American seasick. They are polite 
in a veneer, for they will lift their hats and 
make goo-goo eyes at every pretty woman, 
and they will let an old woman stand up in a 
street car. They are industrious, thrifty, tem- 
perate, and cheerful. Just because they look 
at some things from a different viewpoint is no 
reason why we should criticize them, and yet 
they are so different from the neighbors that 
I can't help mentioning a few things that are 
very noticeable. 



mtnnmiarjiiiiin* 



The French Government has a president, 
whose name few people know, and a senate 



156 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

which has little power, and therefore the main 
factor is the lower house. This kind of govern- 
ment is a mistake, for the large legislative 
body rushes from one extreme to another; 
whenever its majority changes, the cabinet 
resigns, and the result is inconstancy and in- 
stability. Public sentiment is the controlling 
factor, and it takes an acrobat to be a states- 
man in France. Sometimes the flippety-flop 
is popular in America, but on the long run he 
loses. In France he is succeeded by another 
just as good. 



annmiiinmiiiniM 



The French are great lovers of art, and in the 
Louvre they claim the largest collection of 
pictures in the world. They looted Italy to 
get them, but they have them. No living 
artist has a picture in the Louvre. The fellows 
now on earth have to hang their pictures in the 
Salon or the Luxembourg or some other 
gallery, a sort of artistic try out, with the judg- 
ing done after they are no longer able to exert 
any personal influence. I think modern art 
is as good as ancient art, or better, except that 
every modern picture is not art. And I may 
add that in the Paris Salon the pictures 



SOME FRENCH WAYS 157 

painted by the artists of today have just as 
good color, better drawing and just as few 
clothes as the works of the old masters in the 
Louvre. I get along right well with the old 
masters until they paint Mary de Medici and 
Mary the mother of Christ sitting and talking 
together, and then I want to go outside and 
say a few things. 



umiiiiinioimiuimit 



But while Paris is important in the world, 
politically, historically, and artistically, its 
great distinction nowadays is in millinery and 
dressmaking. The women go to Paris to shop, 
and the men go on account of the women. 
The men of Paris are about the worst dressers 
in the world. The women are the best. The 
Parisienne has the natural ability to take a 
hat «and stick a feather in it so the effect is 
brilliant. She can wear a dress that costs 
much less than the gown of an English woman 
or an American woman, and she can look 
stylish when the other women have hard 
work to look decent. The American woman is 
second, and in a few respects, like shoes and 
gloves, she can beat the French ; but take it 
all around, and the world removes its hat to 



158 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

the French milliner. Of course the milliner 
is often a man, but he has to have his Parisian 
model or he would fail. Let M. Worth or 
any of the other Monsieurs who dictate styles 
in feminine attire go to London and he would 
be a second-rater at once. This is true, 
whether you want to believe it or not, and the 
doubter need only spend a few days on the 
Paris boulevards to be convinced. 



Miiiiimiiuiiiiimiiiit 



There may be some who think that the 
latest development in costumes, the hobble 
skirt, has reached America. They are mis- 
taken. No real French hobble skirt could go 
down the street of an American city without 
starting a riot. When one does get to the 
territory of the Stars and Stripes the railroads 
will run excursion trains. The first day or 
two in Paris I was nervous about this style 
of gown. When I saw a saucy French lady 
in a dress which looked as if it was put on by 
a glove-fitter, I felt that I ought to blush and 
look at the statuary. I was told by the best 
feminine authority with me that in order to 
wear one of those skirts it was necessary to 
discard any wearing apparel which is usually 



SOME FRENCn WAYS 159 

beneath the female skirt. The poor, pretty 
things would go along the street like boys in a 
sack-race trying to walk, and by a slit up one 
side which was not buttoned for several feet 
from the bottom, a little motion was secured. 
But when the lady crossed the street, or when 
she climbed to the top of a bus or even stepped 
into a cab, it was necessary in order that she 
maintain appearances that there be not even 
a hole in her stocking above the knee. Of 
course I do not speak from personal observa- 
tion. Far be it from me to watch a lady cross 
the street or climb into a vehicle. But I 
knew how it must be from a careless study of 
the environment, and my theory was con- 
firmed by the evidence of all those who did 
not hide their eyes or observe the scenery. 
And I will add that it is extremelv difficult 
to keep the blinders on while seeing the sights. 
I only speak of these matters because they 
are much more in evidence in Paris than are 
the Statue of Liberty, or the Column of Ven- 
dome, or any of the great places that the 
guide-books tell about. 

Iiuiinrainiimiuno 

The French are delightfully "natural" 
about many things. It is quite the proper 



160 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

thing for a man and woman to hug and kiss 
each other in public. At first this startled 
me and I felt that perhaps they were excited. 
But no, it is just the proper way to manifest 
their feelings at the time. Just imagine how 
it would be if the Frenchman across the table 
from you put his arm around the lady next to 
him and she snuggled up to him and patted 
his cheek with her unengaged hand. I felt like 
getting right up and saying, "Excuse me. Am 
I intruding?" But I soon learned that they 
didn't mind us at all. Their idea of love is to 
let go all holds and 1-o-v-e. Their theory of 
matrimony is that it is an arrangement based 
on family position, business and prospects. 
No young woman can get a husband unless 
she has a dot, so much capital. The parents 
arrange the matches, and usually do so care- 
fully and thoughtfully. The girl, who has 
not even been allowed to go to school with the 
boys, has no idea of any other arrangement; 
and the man, who has never thought of 
matrimony in another way, considers it a 
part of his "career." 

A man in France cannot marry without 
the consent of his parents until he is 25 and a 



SOME FRENCH WAYS 161 

woman not till she is 21. This law is strictly 
obeyed, and there is no running off to some 
other state where the rule is different. I sup- 
pose French marriages arranged in this ap- 
parently cold-blooded manner by the parents 
turn out on the average as well as they would 
if they let the young people rush in and 
"marry for love." But it doesn't seem right 
to us, any more than our ways seem good to 
them. Of course a Frenchman does not in- 
sist that his "sweetheart" shall have a "dot," 
so that kind of an arrangement is made by 
the parties themselves. All of which seems 
very wrong to English and Americans ; and 
yet the French prove it is the best way by 
using the divorce figures, for divorce is prac- 
tically unknown in France. The French 
woman is the business partner of her husband, 
and necessity makes them pull together just 
as they were taught to do from their youth up. 
She doesn't belong to clubs any more than 
her husband does. She has a great deal of 
liberty, and in fact is often the head of the 
firm. 



In Dover Town 

Dover, England, August 22. 
One of the strange things in this old world 
is a boundary line. You are on a railway in 
Germany, hearing no language but German. 
The train crosses the imaginary line and you 
hear an entirely different language, and if you 
try to use the words which were understood 
ten minutes before, the people do not under- 
stand you. They are French, and they not 
only speak a different language but they differ 
in custom, tastes and looks. It would be just 
like a traveler from Hutchinson to Kansas 
City being able to speak and understand what 
people said at Argentine, but on arrival at 
the union depot in Kansas City finding a 
different looking and different talking lot, who 
could not understand a word he said. And 
arriving in the Kansas City depot neither un- 
derstanding nor being understood, would be 
something of an ordeal, especially if you were 
trying to change trains and make a sharp 
connection. It is no wonder that an ordinary 

(162) 



IN DOVER TOWN 163 



Kansan traveling in this European land puts 
in much of his time figuring out his route and 
a lot more doing it. 



xniimnnainuiunat 



Of course it is a joy to arrive in England 
and be able to talk and to understand every- 
thing that is said. Two hours after we left 
the fish-smelly Boulougne I was quarreling in 
right fair English with a railroad official be- 
cause a train was late. In France we would 
have had to stand around and look pleasant, 
for the official would not have known whether 
we were cross about the train or the reciprocity 
treaty. It often relieves your mind to tell a 
Frenchman or a German what you think of 
him or his country in English, but it doesn't 
cause him any discomfort. 



iiiinmiDDim»uiiiit 



Dover is a most interesting town, with a 
castle, a harbor, a garrison, and a history. 
It is the closest English port to France, and 
on a clear day with good eyes and a vivid im- 
agination you can see Calais in France, 21 
miles away. Ever since William the Con- 
queror came over and did his conquering, the 
English have kept Dover fortified in such a 



164 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

way that it would be difficult for another 
conqueror to follow his example. The town 
lies along the shore and back into a small 
river valley. The hills, about 300 feet high, 
begin at the water's edge and go up very 
rapidly. The biggest hill is on the east, and 
rises straight up from the sea 375 feet. The 
face of the cliff is white, for the rock forma- 
tion is chalk, and, topped with green trees and 
a big stone castle, makes a fine appearance 
from the water or from the beach. There is 
not only this old castle, which is a fort with a 
regiment of soldiers, but the cliff is mined and 
tunneled, and big cannon are at the opening 
in the earth, ready to shoot the stuffing out of 
any hostile fleet or army which comes this 
way. The only time the castle was ever 
captured was when Cromwell worked some 
strategem and got it away from the Royalists. 
After looking it all over I don't see how any 
army could possibly capture Dover castle so 
long as the defenders stayed awake. 

The Romans first built a fort here, and the 
remains of the old Roman walls are still a 
small part of the present fortifications. The 
Saxons built some, then the Normans, and 
after that various generations of English, — 



IN DOVER TOWN 165 

so that the castle contains specimens of a lot 
of different styles of architecture. On the 
whole it is one of the most imposing castles in 
Europe, both by location and by construction. 
This castle business is peculiar. Sometimes 
a little runt of a building with a tower and a 
high fence is famous in history and story be- 
cause of a great fight, or a brilliant robber 
who lived there. To the tourist it is a dis- 
appointment. I suppose every one gets his 
idea of what a castle looks like from the read- 
ing done in his youth. When I was a boy I 
thought a castle must be a good deal like the 
court-house at Cottonwood Falls, which is 80 
feet high, with a mansard roof and a jail with 
barred windows in the rear. Then I got a 
larger idea, something like the Reformatory 
at Hutchinson. And when I came to per- 
sonally see these ancient castles I have fre- 
quently had to back up to my early theories. 
Now I am an expert in castles, and can talk 
of them without admitting to myself it is all 
guess-work. When we started up the Rhine 
from Bonn I occupied an unquestioned place 
as an authority, for I had been in the great 
castle country before. But this time my trip 
was reversed. To an admiring company of 



166 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

boat acquaintances I pointed out in the dis- 
tance a magnificent castle we were approach- 
ing. I started to tell the legend of the castle, 
when it became apparent that the structure 
was a cement plant. Then I was more care- 
ful, but soon located another, a really splendid 
castle standing off a little from the river. I 
would have gotten through all right if some 
smart aleck had not butted in with the un- 
called for information that the building was a 
brewery. But that is what a real castle looks 
like, the Hutchinson Reformatory, a cement 
plant, or a brewery, whichever comparison 
comes easiest for you to understand. 



utiaiiuinnnuiumt 



Dover was one of the "Cinque Ports." 
Five little towns along the coast of the channel 
had a sort of organization which was given 
recognition by the government under the 
early Norman kings. The towns were granted 
privileges and relieved from burdens of tax- 
ation in consideration of furnishing ships in 
time of war. The principal work of a navy 
at that time was to capture merchant vessels, 
slug the crews and keep the cargoes ; so the 
towns prospered under the arrangement. It 



IN DOVER TOWN 167 

has been only a couple of hundred years since 
there was a standing army or a royal navy. 
When the king declared war he issued a call 
and the lords and knights responded with 
their men, and the army was formed for the 
campaign. If any of the nobles got sore on the 
king, they took their troops and went home. 
A navy was raised in the same way, only by 
the towns along the coast instead of by in- 
dividuals. Such an army and navy was not 
satisfactory, but the English parliament re- 
fused to furnish money for a standing army 
until after the days of good Queen Anne, about 
200 years ago. Now the English army is not 
near as large as the armies on the continent, 
but the English navy is kept twice the size 
of any other navy in the world. Germany is 
the country that England suspects as a pos- 
sible enemy. Germany and France are cross- 
ways right now over which shall get the most 
of Morocco, and England is bound to stand 
by France in case of trouble. Morocco isn't 
worth anything to anybody, but it may cause 
a terrible war between the most highly civil- 
ized nations of Europe. And yet some people 
are opposed to arbitration because of "na- 



168 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

tional honor." The opponents of arbitration 
ought to come over to these poor countries 
laboring under the weight of big armies and 
navies, and see how people are suffering be- 
cause of the foolish feudal notion that the 
way to decide which is right is to fight it out. 



siiniiiiiiEiinuniHiii 



We ate our lunch today in a restaurant 
which proudly boasts that its steps were the 
place where David Copperfield rested during 
his search for his aunt, Betsey Trotwood. 
Little Dorrit lived at Dover, and the men and 
women of Dickens land often visited or made 
their homes in this quaint old seaport or in its 
vicinity. Shut your eyes to the big cliff and 
its imposing fortress, forget the harbor with 
its ships and men of war, quit observing the 
narrow streets and crooked lanes which run 
up and down the side of the hill, and live with 
the people that Dickens made so real that to 
most of us they surely existed. That is Dover, 
a different Dover from the red-coated, fish- 
smelling, quaintly architectured place in which 
people are buying and selling, and a Dover 
which will live as long as the English language 
is read. 



Old Canterbury Today 

Canterbury, England, August 24. 
This little city of 25,000 inhabitants is the 
ecclesiastical capital of England, and has been 
for over a thousand years. Some time before 
the year 600 Queen Bertha, wife of the Saxon 
king, became a Christian and built a small 
church in Canterbury. Then when St. Au- 
gustine came in 597 and took the king and all 
his army into the church at one big baptiz- 
ing, the king gave him the palace and the 
heathen church, and they were converted into 
a cathedral and monastery. St. Augustine 
and succeeding archbishops were the heads 
of the church in England, and when the Nor- 
mans came in 1060 they continued the rule. 
The first Norman archbishop began the con- 
struction of the present cathedral, and as 
money was plenty and labor cheap, it was 
built magnificently. The Archbishop of Can- 
terbury received the title of Primate of All 
England, and he wears it to this day. The 
English Church is a government institution, 

(169) 



170 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

the archbishop is a member of the House of 
Lords, and the position is easily the greatest 
in the Protestant world. 

The murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket, 
in 1170, was the greatest thing that ever hap- 
pened for Canterbury. He was in a contro- 
versy with King Henry, and made life so un- 
comfortable for the king that Henry re- 
marked to some of his followers that if he 
had a few real friends there would be no 
Thomas Becket to worry him. Henry was 
probably drunk when he made this talk, al- 
though it doubtless was an expression of his 
real feelings. Four of his knights took him 
at his word, hiked to Canterbury, and killed 
the archbishop right in the cathedral. The 
murder was a shock to Christendom. The 
dead archbishop was canonized as a saint, 
and the people generally refused to believe 
Henry's statement that he didn't mean what 
he said. Everything went wrong with Henry, 
and the sacrilegious act was held responsible. 
Two years later the king went to Canterbury 
and took a whipping on his bare back as a 
penance for his remarks, and for years pil- 
grims came to Canterbury, miracles were re- 



OLD CANTERBURY TODAY 171 

ported wrought by the relics, and the cathe- 
dral and Canterbury got rich from the pil- 
grim business and the valuable gifts showered 
upon the shrine of St. Thomas. 



It is customary to consider Thomas Becket 
a martyr to the cause of liberty and to in- 
dulge in great eulogy of him as a saint. But 
he was really a plain man like the rest of us. 
His trouble with the king came because Henry 
wanted to recognize some other bishops, and 
Thomas, who was proud and stubborn, 
claimed that he alone had the power. It 
was really a conflict of authority between 
the church and the state, and a good deal to 
be said on both sides. Thomas abused the 
king viciously and had several bishops ex- 
communicated because they agreed with 
Henry. He also threatened the king, and 
the disagreement was all over jobs and money. 
Those were tough times, and the usual way 
to get rid of an enemy was to kill him if you 
could. Unfortunately for Henry, his self- 
appointed friends did a bungling job, Thomas 
became a saint, and the king had to concede 
to the church all the privileges that had been 



172 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

claimed. Three hundred years later King 
Henry the Eighth, in order to secure a divorce 
and a new queen, overthrew the authority of 
the church, made himself the head of it, and 
incidentally sent to Canterbury, took all the 
valuables that had been placed on the shrine 
of St. Thomas, and put them in the national 
treasury, that is, his own pocket. 



niiiiiiiiiiiciiiniiiiiiuc 



But during that 300 years the supremacy 
of Canterbury as the religious head of the 
nation became fixed. The archbishops gener- 
ally had to go into politics, many of them 
achieved greatness, and some were executed 
publicly. The cathedral was added to, "re- 
stored," improved, and is now one of the very 
finest cathedrals in Europe. To an English- 
man or an American it is more interesting 
than any other church in England, except 
perhaps Westminster Abbey. It has speci- 
mens of all kinds of architecture in its differ- 
ent parts, but they have been so harmoniously 
put together that the edifice is imposing on 
the outside and most impressive on the in- 
side. 



OLD CANTERBURY TODAY 173 

Canterbury itself is a sleepy old town, very 
full of quaint houses and with plenty of tra- 
dition to make things interesting. Chaucer, 
Dickens, Thackeray and other English writ- 
ers have woven Canterbury into their stories, 
and on every side you are shown the places 
where heroes and heroines of fiction made 
their homes. But this week Canterbury is 
busy. The last game of the cricket season 
is being played, and Canterbury is as crazy 
over cricket as Hutchinson was over baseball 
when in the Western Association. The cricket 
association of England is made up of the coun- 
ties, and I had the opportunity of seeing the 
game between Kent and Yorkshire. Fully 
ten thousand people attended, and I suppose 
they enjoyed the game, though English cricket 
is as tame to an American as the moo of a 
cow would seem to a roaring lion, or as spring- 
water lemonade would taste to a colonel from 
Kentucky. The game began at 10 o'clock 
in the morning, with Yorkshire, the visit- 
ing team, at the bat. At one o'clock the 
Yorks were put out after making 75 runs. 
Then there was lunch, and the crowd stayed 
on the field and under the trees for what 



174 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

looked to me like a harvest home picnic in 
Kansas. At 2 o'clock play was resumed, and 
continued till 4 o'clock, when the game 
stopped for the players and spectators to 
have tea. Yes, tea! Imagine an American 
ball game suspended for a half-hour while 
the ball-players enjoyed tea and sandwiches! 
It was too much for me. I saw the last half 
of the first inning would not be ended in one 
day, so I quit the cricketers and their tea 
and went off to look at an old church, which 
was more exciting. 



anromnrminiinac 



There are some peculiarities about cricket 
when viewed from an American standpoint. 
The association or league corresponds very 
well to our National or American League. 
A club of eleven men may be all professionals, 
or, as is usually the case, some may be ama- 
teurs. A professional is a player who is paid, 
and on the score his name appears without 
prefix, just "Brown." But if he is an ama- 
teur and plays without pay, his name is on 
the score card "J. M. Brown, Esq." He is 
then called a "gentleman player." The game 
usually lasts two days. The side that is in 



OLD CANTERBURY TODAY 175 

stays in until ten men are put out. The 
pitcher or bowler tries to hit the wicket, three 
little posts that stand like our baseball home 
plate, and if he does, the batter is out. The 
batter, or in English the batsman, defends 
the "wicket," and when he hits the ball far 
enough runs to the other wicket, which is 
located at the pitcher's box. If he knocks a 
fly and it is caught he is out, or if a fielder 
gets the ball and hits the wicket while he is 
running, he is out. Two batsmen are up at 
a time, and a man may make a lot of runs. 
I saw Woolley, the pride of Kent, score 56 
runs, and players often exceed the hundred 
mark. If the game is not finished in three 
days it is declared off. 

The crowd was quiet and ladylike. Occa- 
sionally they would applaud and say "Well 
bowled, sir," but they did not tell the umpire 
he was rotten and they never urged the visit- 
ing club to warm up another pitcher. Not a 
word was said by the players, not a pop- 
bottle was thrown, nobody was benched and 
there was never a thought of such a thing. 
The English are better sportsmen than we 



176 A JATHAWKER IN EUROPE 

are, and they applaud a good play by a vis- 
itor. A man who tried to rattle the bowler 
by screaming that his arm was glass, would 
be arrested and probably hung. 



VNDMJglimiNK 



Besides the cathedral, the quaint buildings 
and the cricket, Canterbury also offered an 
opportunity to see the moving pictures of the 
Jeffries-Johnson prize fight in a theater next 
to the church. Of course I did not go. I 
told several Englishmen that in America we 
considered these pictures degrading, and as 
between the fight pictures and the cathedral 
I preferred the cathedral. Besides, I had seen 
the fight pictures before. 



jimrainomniMiii 



Another very interesting church in Canter- 
bury is St. Martin's, a little one, but con- 
sidered the mother church of England. It 
is said to be the one erected for Queen Bertha 
before her Saxon husband, Ethelbert, was 
converted. This was prior to 600. It is on 
a foundation which was used for a Roman 
temple. Within the church is a big stone 
font said to have been used for the baptizing 
of Ethelbert. There is little doubt but that 



OLD CANTERBURY TODAY 177 

the history of St. Martin's is clear and it is 
the oldest Christian church in all England. 



■■■■ 



Associating with old cathedrals and Saxon 
churches makes one feel a few thrills. Even 
the inn where Chaucer put up his pilgrims 
seems modern. But cricket and the prize- 
fight pictures make up a sort of balance, and 
second-hand shops with wonderful salesmen 
bring one back to the 20th century. Canter- 
bury has a famous brewery which is better 
patronized locally than is the cathedral, and 
farmers are in town trying to get hop-pickers 
just like Kansas farmers after hands in har- 
vest-time. If St. Thomas could come back 
and see the automobiles running around his 
old monastery, notice the electric lights in 
the cathedral crypt, observe the American 
tourists with their guidebooks and their gall, 
he would probably have some thrills himself. 



The English Strike 

London, August 28. 
There was a great strike of railway men in 
England last week, the news of which was 
sent over the world. As a subject of con- 
versation and discussion it has taken the 
place of ordinary sights and tourist stunts. 
A very large per cent of the railway employes 
went out, there was rioting in several places, 
the soldiers were called upon, there was almost 
war in spots, and several people, innocent by- 
standers usually, were killed. The govern- 
ment secured a cessation of the strike by 
getting men and managers to agree to sub- 
mit the differences to a national commission 
and be bound by it — an agreement both sides 
will break if it does not suit them. A rail- 
road strike is a most serious thing in England, 
for in London and the manufacturing centers 
the people depend on the railroads to bring 
in their provisions, and as ice is almost un- 
known very few shops have more than a day's 
supply of meats, fish and fresh eatables on 

(178) 



THE ENGLISH STRIKE 179 

hand. So the strike was pinching millions of 
people who had no personal interest in its 
result. 

If I were a railroad employe in England 
I would strike, or at least I'd strike out for 
America or some other land where a man has 
a show. Railroad men are not well paid in 
England, rather worse than other working- 
men. Engineers, or drivers as they are called, 
rarely get to exceed 30 to 35 shillings a week 
(seven to nine dollars). Firemen, switch- 
men, baggagemen, station-men, operators, 
conductors and brakemen get from 20 shill- 
ings to 35 shillings a week (five to nine dol- 
lars). And yet both passenger fares and 
freight charges are higher in England than in 
Kansas. In discussing the subject with an 
educated Englishman I complained that a 
man with a family could not live on these 
wages. 'Yes, but they do," he said; "but 
the family doesn't get meat every day — and 
the family doesn't need meat every day." I 
argued on, that a man can't buy a home, or 
save anything for trouble or old age. " That's 
true," he said, "and it is unfortunate. But 
his children won't let him starve, and there 



180 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

is some light job he can do to help out. The 
government is now preparing a plan for the 
pensioning of old people. When that law is 
working, a man won't have to worry about 
the future." 

Which is a rotten theory. It merely means 
that with the prospect of a pension of less 
than two dollars a week an English laborer 
can be kept working at the present low stand- 
ard. I am for the old-age pension, but I am 
for the proper payment of a workingman while 
he is at the age to enjoy life. This beautiful 
England with its castles and palaces and pic- 
ture galleries and great history is far behind 
every other nation in its treatment of the 
workingman, and consequently England is 
now sitting on a keg of dynamite which is 
likely to explode. Once get it out of the 
heads of the English workmen that they have 
to submit to these things and these wages 
because their fathers did, and that it is a 
great blessing to have a king and lords, and 
the English workingmen will raise Hades 
with the present political and social conditions 
in merry England. It seems to me that the 
time is not far distant when the explosion 



THE ENGLISH STRIKE 181 

will take place. Only very skillful manage- 
ment on the part of the English statesmen 
and the very conservative habits of thought 
of the English people prevented most serious 
trouble last week. 

An English workman usually has a large 
family, and the only way they can keep from 
going hungry or to the poorhouse is for the 
whole family to work and mother and children 
earn money to put into the common treasury. 
Meat, vegetables, fruit, everything to eat, 
costs more in England than it does in Kansas. 
Rent is less, but our workmen wouldn't live 
as these have to. Clothing is cheaper in 
some respects and dearer in others. But the 
item is small with an English workman. You 
can see that after he pays rent and buys food 
he has very little left for wearing apparel, so 
father wears his suit until it is worn out, 
mother gets along on second-hand clothing, 
which is generally used, and the children have 
a cheaper grade and little of it. 



I am not knocking on the English. This 
condition which seems so distressing to me is 
a product of their conditions and is not the 



182 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE.' 

deliberate purpose of the people. I think it 
comes from the conservatism of the English 
character, and also from the fact that the 
English workman competes against the world. 
English manufactures and commerce have 
been built up because in England labor is in- 
telligent, high-class, and cheap. I can have 
a tailor-made suit of clothes for twelve dol- 
lars in London. That's fine for me, but how 
is it for the tailor? And it doesn't help the 
other English workingman, for he does not 
have the twelve. On the other hand, the 
ability of the American workman to buy has 
brought it to pass that he can get just as good 
a suit, better fitted and better looking, at a 
Hutchinson clothing store for twelve to fifteen 
dollars, — and he has the money and buys! 
There is going to be some discussion of cloth- 
ing and the woolen schedule in the United 
States, and I want to put in this testimony. 
Before I left home I bought a suit in Hutchin- 
son for fifteen dollars. No English tailor- 
made suit for that price looks near so well, 
and the way it fits and hangs is complimented 
by the English. The only kind of stuff that 
is cheaper in England than with us is that 



THE ENGLISH STRIKE 183 

in which hand labor is employed. Women 
buy laces because they are made by intelli- 
gent working-women who are paid 25 to 50 
cents a day. Silk hats are cheaper, but the 
same quality hat I buy at home cost me just 
as much in London, and shirts, underwear, 
sox, etc., are as expensive here as in Hutch- 
inson. I am told the same rule applies to 
women's clothes. Americans who come to 
England and continue to live on the same 
standard they do in America say that living 
is more expensive here. Of course they can 
have three or four servants for the same price 
they paid the one hired girl at home, and can 
pose as being " upper class." 



jjimmmioiuiumaE 



I went to a barber shop, a first-class one. 
I w r as shaved for a "tuppence" (four Ameri- 
can cents) and had my hair cut for a "trip- 
pence" (six American cents). I gave the bar- 
ber a tip of a penny, for which he was very 
thankful, and then I went out of the shop 
growling at a country where I could get 
shaved so cheaply and where a tailor-made 
suit cost only $12. In this world of ours we 
are so dependent on one another that you can't 



184 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

cheapen one man without cheapening all the 
rest. I asked the street-car conductor and 
he told me he was paid five dollars a week — 
and he has a family of six. The chamber- 
maid at the hotel works for a dollar a week 
and board. A good coachman or a house- 
man gets one to two dollars a week and board. 
A clerk in a store does well to beat five dol- 
lars a week. How do they live? I don't 
know, but they do ; but they have all heard 
of America and Canada and Australia, and 
would go there if they could raise the fare, or 
if it were not for leaving family and home. 



jmmiiiuiDiinimirat 



I am getting away from the strike subject. 
I make myself unpopular with some of the 
English, the wealthier people and their foot- 
men, by insisting that the railroad men ought 
to strike and ought to have their wages 
doubled, when I have to pay more than two 
cents a mile for a second-class fare, and about 
twice as much for shipping freight as I would 
in Kansas. And I always compare with Kan- 
sas, a place most of them never heard of, 
and I suppose they think I am describing a 



THE ENGLISH STRIKE 185 

fictitious land where the millennium has al- 
ready arrived. 



iBiranuarawin 



We spent an afternoon at Richmond, where 
high hills rise from the valley of the Thames 
and the view of English farm and village, 
river and forest, is one of the finest in the 
world. Far away in the distance is Windsor 
Castle, the favorite royal dwelling-place, the 
Thames like a silver streak dotted with boats 
and wooded islands, quaint towns with old 
churches, and winding roads white with the 
macadam of chalky stone, occasional tram- 
ways, busses with the passengers on top, gar- 
dens and orchards, little strips of pasture 
with sheep and cows, fences of hedges and 
ivy-covered walls, — all of these things are a 
panorama which make the breath come fast, 
the heart beat more rapidly. The ground 
is historic, for it has been the living-place 
and fighting-place of great men from the time 
of the Saxons, and every town and hill is 
like a page of English history. Beautiful 
homes adorn the hillside and comfortable 
inns offer entertainment to the traveler and 
the visitor. It is a great picture, and artists 



186 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

have copied it onto their canvases. Turner 
and Gainsborough lived here, and their pic- 
tures of English scenery are more beautiful 
than their conceptions of saints and their 
portraits of sinners. Here is where good King 
Edward, the most popular monarch England 
has had in many years, came for a view and 
a night out. In the road-house on the height 
is the place where Lilly Langtry achieved fame 
by slipping a chunk of ice down the back of 
Edward's princely neck. 

We had lunch at The Boar's Head and took 
tea at The Red Dog, two of the many tav- 
erns which show the English taste in names 
is just the same now as it was when Pickwick 
traveled and motor cars were unknown. 



Englishman the Great 

London, August 31. 
London is easily the capital of the world. 
As much as every other large nation might 
argue the question, there is general accept- 
ance of the fact that Great Britain is the 
greatest force politically. The English navy, 
superior in size and quality to any other two 
navies, the English commerce which goes un- 
der the English flag to the furthermost parts, 
the great English colonies (almost independ- 
ent states) Canada and Australia, the rich 
English possessions like India and South 
Africa, the English "spheres of influence" 
like Egypt and Persia, and the supremacy of 
English capital and banking methods, — all of 
these and the capable, self-possessed, edu- 
cated English manhood and womanhood have 
made the power of Great Britain foremost 
among the nations. And London is not only 
the political capital of England and its de- 
pendencies, but it is the capital in business, 
books, art, fashion, science, and money. The 

(187) 



188 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

wealth and the literature and the commerce 
of the world depend on the judgment of Lon- 
don. The very thought of the power thus 
included is impressive. I walked down 
Threadneedle street and Lombard street, each 
about as large as an alley in Hutchinson, and 
thought of the millions and millions of money 
and capital which those plain buildings con- 
tained, and of the power which the men within 
them possessed. Then I thought of the eight 
million people of London, moving around like 
ants in a hill, and the size, the activity, and 
the never-ending motion, brought most forci- 
bly to mind how insignificant is one man, 
especially if he is from Kansas and doesn't 
know a soul in all that aggregation. 



IiuuiiiiiiinuimiimiE 



But there is one part of London in which 
all English-speaking people have a part — the 
London of history, of Dickens, Thackeray, 
Johnson, Shakespeare and those men whose 
names are living long after the money-lender 
and the broker are forgotten. A little way 
from the Bank and the bankers is the old 
Curiosity Shop, the Cheshire Cheese, the 
Cock, the Temple Courts, and hundreds of 




SEEING LONDON FROM THE OLD ENGLISH BUS 



ENGLISHMAN THE GREAT 189 

names familiar to every reader of English 
literature, and instead of being lonesome and 
oppressed by the weight of the millions of 
people and money, I felt that I had met old 
friends, and that Little Dorrit, or David Cop- 
perfield, or Samuel Johnson, or Pendennis, 
or Oliver Twist or some other acquaintance 
whom I knew very well was expected every 
minute. That is the great beauty of being 
an American in London, for all of the history 
and literature that have centered here is ours 
as w T ell as our English cousins'. 



liimimiioiMiimiflt 



The hansom cab and the old omnibus are 
disappearing before the taxi and the motor- 
bus. It is a shame, but the world will move 
on. Every Englishman or traveler remem- 
bers the London cab, with its two wheels and 
hood-shaped carriage, and the driver up be- 
hind. There are still a few, but the taxis are 
faster, and the London cab horse will soon 
be freed. So it is with the old bus, drawn by 
two good horses and driven by an expert 
driver who knew all of the history and ro- 
mance of the buildings along the route, and 
who would impart said information with dec- 



190 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

orations and embellishments to the traveler 
with a sixpence. All of this so-called progress, 
the motor cars and the wider streets, are 
doubtless more efficient and more sanitary, 
but they are not near so picturesque or in- 
teresting. The taxicabs go through the Lon- 
don crowds, the jam of vehicles and the con- 
gestion of traffic at a speed that would not 
be tolerated in a small town in Kansas. The 
policeman stands on the corner and regulates 
the moving mass, but apparently there is no 
speed limit, only punishment for bad driving. 
The motor-driver who runs over a man is 
severely punished, and that makes him care- 
ful. The rule works well, but not quite so 
well as the one in Paris, which punishes the 
pedestrian who gets in the way of the motor 
car. 



jtnnimiutimaiaina 



Next to the wages problem is the land prob- 
lem in England. Three or four men own half 
the real estate in London. Their ancestors 
got it in a fairly legitimate way when it was 
outlying country, and now it is the heart of 
a great city. The English law of heredity 
keeps the estate together. The English land 



ENGLISHMAN THE GREAT 191 

conditions are the worst I know of in any 
nation in the world. The rich old dukes who 
own so much of London cannot be pried loose 
from their holdings, and the actual residents 
cannot buy their homes or their business 
houses. The proprietor usually leases for 99 
years, but every improvement goes to him 
eventually ; he will do nothing himself, and 
the renter pays the taxes. On Piccadilly 
street, in the center of the fashionable resi- 
dence and shop district, the Marquis of Land- 
sup, or some such title, has a park of twenty 
acres which is surrounded by a high stone 
wall. It is a pretty park, but the owner's 
family is there only a couple of months in 
the year when the weather is cold and the 
park is not usable. The rest of the time no 
one but servants and caretakers occupy that 
beautiful tract, with the city all around it. 
And thousands and tens of thousands of 
people are walking the streets or living in 
miserable tenements. I suspect I'd be a So- 
cialist if I stayed long in London and thought 
much about such things as this. With all 
their brain and intellect the English states- 
men have not solved the land problem in 



192 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

England, and they never will solve it until 
they upset the table. 



IHROSMOTHUflC 



It is a great thing to be able to speak the 
language and not have to rely so much on 
holding up your fingers and making faces. 
We have been for so many weeks among the 
Dutch and the French that it is a positive 
pleasure to just listen to the conversation 
around us and know that we can understand. 
A little knowledge of a foreign tongue leads 
to many mistakes. I heard a Frenchman in 
a London hotel giving an account of his day's 
experience to an English lady. Among other 
things he said he went to a linen store and 
left an order for table linen, and added, "and 
I will have my entrails on it." Of course he 
meant his initials, but he had been careless 
with his dictionary. And yet it is very hard 
for us to understand the ordinary London 
cab-driver or workman. His accent is so 
different that it is almost like another lan- 
guage. And even an educated Englishman 
will give you a direction like this : " Go to 
the next turning on the left, bear a bit to the 
right until you get to the top of the street." 



ENGLISHMAN THE GREAT 193 

Which means in American go to the next 
corner, turn to the left, then a little to the 
right to the end of the street. I never can 
understand why the English people generally 
murder their language as they do. But per- 
haps I am like the little American girl I met 
in Germany. She had learned German at 
home, and I asked her how she got along in 
Berlin. "Not very well," she said, "they 
talk such bad German." 



The transportation in the center of London 
is confined entirely to busses and cabs. There 
is too much traffic and the streets are too 
narrow for street railways. In the outer parts 
of the city a number of street cars, or "trams" 
as they are called, are operated. Every bus 
and every tram has seats on the roof, and they 
are the choice seats on the vehicle. From one 
of these top seats is the place to see London, 
and the traveler has the advantage of not 
only being able to note the sights on the pave- 
ment and the walks, but he can look in the 
second-story windows and see how people live. 
There are no great skyscrapers in London, the 
business houses usually being six stories or 



194 A JATHAWKER IN EUEOPE 

• ' ii i . i " ■■ . 1 ■ 

less in height. The residences are nearly al- 
ways three or four stories, and either built 
flush to the street, with a garden or court in 
the rear, or back from the street and the yard 
inclosed by a high stone wall. The English- 
man goes on the old principle that an Eng- 
lishman's house is his castle, and puts up 
high walls between himself and his neighbors. 
A front porch, or an open lawn in front of a 
private house, would be regarded as freakish 
or an evidence of insanity. On the other 
hand, there are many public parks and pretty 
green squares in London which are breathing- 
spots for the congestion of humanity within 
this great city. 

The "City of London" which has a Lord 
Mayor is the little old city which is the hub 
of the whole business. It is the section of the 
banks and the great institutions of finance, 
and is about the size of Hutchinson, but a 
solid mass of stone structures and narrow 
streets. Only about 30,000 people reside 
there. The London of the present is London 
County, covers about 900 square miles and 
is therefore about the size of Reno county. 
That is the area in which 8,000,000 people 



ENGLISHMAN THE GREAT 195 

live. It is governed by a County Council, 
elected by the taxpayers, which is a very 
active body and is doing much to improve 
the conditions. London has fine water and 
visitors are even urged to drink it — some- 
thing new in Europe. Taxes, or "rates" as 
they are called, are high, and include every- 
thing from real estate and personal to income 
tax and a stamp tax on receipts and drafts. 
The great problem of improving a city is to 
get the money without distressing the people. 
It requires large sums to make and care for 
parks, streets, schools, paving, water-works, 
light, and the other things that the city must 
have in order to be modern, healthful, and 
comfortable. The citizens everywhere groan 
under the weight of taxation, and yet they 
should not if the money is properly spent. 
These streets, police, schools, fire departments 
and such are as necessary as the walls of our 
homes, which also require money to build 
and maintain. The certainty of death and 
taxes is proverbial. There is no way to avoid 
the former and the only way to dodge taxes 
is to go to an uninhabited island and live 
by yourself. And then if some other indi- 



196 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

vidual comes along, the first thing the orig- 
inal tax-dodger will do is to tax the other 
fellow. 

MRMBKmnnB 

The ordinary English home has the front 
room of the house for the dining-room. The 
"drawing -room" is at the rear and the 
kitchen quite a distance from the dining-room. 
The drawing-room is used only on special 
occasions and the dining-room is the family 
living-room. The English are great home- 
makers, and their houses are always well fur- 
nished and look as if folks lived there. On the 
continent the fashion is to go out for the even- 
ing meal to restaurant or cafe, but the Eng- 
lishman comes home and stays there. The 
table is spread with the family and intimate 
friends around, and supper is served at 8 
o'clock or later. You see the Englishman has 
already had three meals — breakfast, luncheon, 
and tea ; so the evening meal is late. To me 
the most attractive part of English life is 
that in the home. The Englishman gathers 
his family about him, pulls down the blinds, 
reads his newspaper and is in his castle, which 
no lord or duke can enter without his consent. 



ENGLISHMAN THE GREAT 197 

This simple virtue of home-living is rare in 
Europe, and in the family circle which gathers 
at the table and at the altar the young Eng- 
lishman gets the habit of thought and man- 
ner which marks him wherever he goes, and 
which has made his country the greatest of 
all the nations. 



The North of Ireland 

Londonderry, Ireland, September 8. 
Crossing the Irish Sea from Fishguard in 
southern Wales to Rosslare in southern Ire- 
land, I met a jolly Irishman from Cork. When 
I told him I was going to the North of Ireland 
he remonstrated. "Don't do it, mon. Every 
Irishman up there is a Scotchman!" But I 
had seen the beautiful South of Ireland and 
we had to come to Londonderry to take the 
ship for home, so the warning of the Corker 
was in vain. I found that he was right. Soon 
after we left Dublin we came upon linen 
factories and distilleries and Presbyterian 
churches, people too busy to jolly a stranger, 
and cannily seeking the surest way to a six- 
pence. In the South of Ireland no one is too 
busy to talk with the stranger and to tell him 
all the legendary lore of the country, while 
in the North one shrinks from stopping the 
busy worker, even to ask him which way is 
straight up. The people of both ends of Ire- 
land are pleasant and the American dollar is 

(198) 



THE NORTH OF IRELAND 199 

greatly admired, but the process of extracting 
it is painless, even pleasant, in Cork, while it 
hurts enough to notice in Belfast. The South 
is almost entirely agricultural and is social, 
while the North is filled with factories and 
notices not to allow your heads to stick out of 
the windows. The people of the South are 
poorer but happier ; the people of the North 
are busier and more worried in their looks. 
The Irishman in the South smiles pleasantly 
without an apparent thought of the money he 
is going to make, the Irishman in the North 
smiles after he gets the money. 

All of this Emerald isle is green, and pic- 
turesque scenery with lakes and falls, glens 
and fields, rugged coasts and beautiful beaches 
is to be found from Queenstown to Portrush. 



vummmuuim 



We stopped a day in Dublin, which is an 
Irish city with a large tinge of English. It 
was the capital of Ireland prior to the con- 
solidation of the Irish Parliament with that of 
Great Britain, and may still be called so be- 
cause the Lord-Lieutenant Governor lives here 
and has a sort of a court. There are about 



200 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

400,000 people, packed in too tightly and 
with not enough work to keep many of them 
in decent living and style. That is the trouble 
in Ireland — one of their troubles, the lack of 
opportunity for work. There is not much for 
the energetic young Irishman to do but to 
emigrate, and he goes to America or Canada 
or Australia, or even to England, to get a job 
and a chance. The land is nearly all owned by 
men who do not live in Ireland, and is rented 
to farmers who find that when they improve 
their places it means a raise in rent. The new 
land law which gives a man a sort of title to 
his leased land, and makes a court of arbitra- 
tion as to rent and purchase, is improving 
conditions in Ireland and they are better off 
now in respect to land than they are in Eng- 
land, except for the blight of absentee land- 
lordism, the system which takes the rent- 
money and spends it in London or in Paris. 



9KBNBQNMUMC 



Dublin is perking up some on the prospect 
of home rule, which would bring an Irish 
legislature to Dublin and make the city a real 
capital. But the prospect for home rule is 
dubious. The Irish party holds the balance 



THE NORTH OF IRELAND 201 

of power in the English Parliament and has 
been allied with the Liberals in their reforms 
and the dehorning of the House of Lords. 
The Liberals have promised the Irish home 
rule, and the leaders will try to fulfill the 
promise, but they may find it hard work to 
line up their followers, and let it go until an- 
other general election. There are so many 
other questions involved in English politics 
that home rule may be lost in the shuffle, but 
as the Irish are the best politicians in the 
world they are looking forward to success after 
a lovely fight. 

The city of Belfast, a hundred miles north 
of Dublin, is the center of the linen trade. 
The English Parliament a couple of hundred 
years ago prohibited the manufacture of wool 
in Ireland because it competed with English 
trade, but promoted the spinning of linen. 
The climate is just right, labor is cheap, and 
Irish linen is the best in the world. We visited 
a linen mill, and also a cottage where the hand 
looms were at work. The wages paid to good 
hands are 50 to 75 cents a day. This would 
be fair wages in Europe, but the work is not 



202 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

always steady and many days are lost in 
setting the patterns and fixing the looms. 
The manager of the factory said that most of 
his best men went to America — he himself 
had two sons in New York. The wages here 
will keep soul and body together if the body 
is willing to get along on fish and potatoes. 
But there is no outcome, no prospect of a 
future which shall include a beefsteak once a 
week. The manager had been in America and 
he knew the difference. "Our workmen are all 
right because they don't know the luxuries 
the American workman has, except by hear- 
say. Of course if they once get the appetite 
for meat and a new suit of clothes every year 
they have to leave us. But a two-eyed beef- 
steak makes a good meal." A two-eyed beef- 
steak is an Irish name for a herring. 

Belfast has great ship-building yards, next 
to Glasgow the greatest in the world. It also 
has large distilleries which supply England 
and America. I am told that the consumption 
of liquor is on the decrease in Ireland. I hope 
so. But the distilleries keep building addi- 
tions and enlarging their plants. 



THE NORTH OF IRELAND 203 

Which recalls the old story of the Illinois 
statesman who was a great drinker and was 
ruining the prospect of a useful life. His 
family and friends tried to stop him, but the 
habit or disease could not be overcome. One 
night a friend had him out for a walk, trying 
to sober him up for important business the 
next day. They passed a distillery and the 
friend said: "John, what a fool you are to 
try to drink all the whisky that is made. You 
can't do it. See that busy distillery with its 
bright lights and throbbing engines. You 
can't beat it." John looked, and then with 
drunken dignity replied: "Perhaps you're 
right. But don you shee I'm making 'em 
work nights?" 

The drink problem is the hardest to solve 
in Great Britain, England, Ireland and Scot- 
land. It is worse than the wage problem or 
the land problem. In no other countries that 
I have visited are the evils of booze so plainly 
in evidence as in the British Isles. In Ger- 
many the sight of the family in the beer gar- 
den with their mugs of creamy liquid, their 



204 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

good-nature and their temperance, does not 
make an unpleasant impression. In France 
and the southern countries, where wine is the 
common beverage, one does not worry about 
this custom. But in England, Ireland and 
Scotland, where you see men and women 
drunk in the streets and in the gutters, where 
you see children ragged and barefooted, homes 
cheerless and pauperism prevalent, all plainly 
because of the drink, the sensibility of even 
the most seasoned is shocked. Public-houses 
with women behind the bars, open seven days 
in the week and handing out the whisky which 
temporarily exhilarates and then stupefies and 
degrades, are one of the companion pictures 
to the great buildings, wonderful achieve- 
ments and artistic developments which one 
sees in every British town. The temperance 
societies work hard, the government would 
help if it dared, but the drinking, the suffer- 
ing and the pauperizing process goes on. 
The distilleries are enlarging, and working 
nights. 



MMflflBB OMUB im 



I talked this matter over with an intelli- 
gent Irishman, and he agreed with me that if 



THE NORTH OF IRELAND 205 

the drinking of liquor could be abolished it 
would do away with nine-tenths of the pov- 
erty. "But see these poor fellows and how 
they work," he said. " Saturday night comes, 
and who can blame them for having a few 
pleasant hours even if it is all imagination, 
and even if they do go to work on blue Mon- 
day with aching heads and a little tremble." 
Which is very poor argument, for it does 
not take in the dependent wives and children. 
And the Saturday night drunk makes a poor 
workman on Monday. 



On the northern coast of Ireland, near 
Portrush and a number of beautiful summer 
resorts, is the Giant's Causeway. The origin 
of this really wonderful freak of nature is 
said by archaeologists to be volcanic, and that 
the Causeway, the adjoining cliffs and several 
islands are products that came from a vol- 
cano in the shape of burning lava, and were 
then thrown into shape by later explosions 
as the molten mass was cooling. The Cause- 
way is a formation like a pier extending into 
the ocean and made up of 40,000 pillars (by 
Irish count), each a separate column and 



£06 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

usually five- or six-sided. They are about 
twenty feet long, twenty inches in diameter 
and jointed like mason- work, or more like 
a bamboo rod. The theory is that as the 
lava cooled it cracked and shrunk. Perhaps 
so. Nobody saw it. 

I prefer the Irish version, which is simpler 
and easy to understand. 



jimmiiuiuiniiiiiinit 



Fin MacCoul, the giant, was the champion 
of Ireland. He had knocked out all rivals 
and no one could stand in front of him for 
a second round. He was as great a man in 
Ireland as John L. Sullivan used to be in 
Boston. Over in Scotland a certain Cale- 
donia giant boasted that he could lick any 
man on earth, Irish preferred. He gave out 
an interview to the newspapers, saying that 
if it were not for the wetting he would cross 
over and take the Irish championship from 
Fin. After much of the usual mouth- work 
between the champions, Fin got permission 
from the king, constructed the Causeway 
from Ireland to Scotland, and dared the Cale- 
donian to come across. The Scot was game, 
and the match was pulled off without police 



THE NORTH OF IRELAND 207 

interference, resulting in a victory for Fin, 
who kindly allowed his beaten rival to settle 
in Ireland and open a saloon. Ireland was 
then, as it is now, the finest country in the 
world, so the Scotchman lived happily ever 
afterward. The Causeway gradually sank 
into the sea, and all that is now in sight is 
the Irish end and a few islands between it and 
the Scottish coast. 



uramiimraiminrot 



The formation of the coast for several 
miles each side of the Causeway is the same 
volcanic rock, and it rises abruptly hundreds 
of feet high from the sea. Caves and cav- 
erns with arches and vaults and echoes, and 
natural amphitheatres with the pipe organ 
Fin used to play and the bathtub which he 
used, are visited by the visitors who go out 
upon the Atlantic in a row-boat. I have 
seen Niagara and the Falls of the Rhine, and 
the Garden of the Gods in Colorado, and a 
few hundred more wonderful works of Na- 
ture or of giants, and the Causeway is not 
second to any of them. 



Our last stop in Ireland is this town of 
Londonderry, known in Ireland as "Deny." 



208 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

The London end of the name was put on by 
King James the First, who was so devoted 
to his religion that he killed or exiled the 
Catholic Irish in Ulster and Derry and gave 
their lands to Protestant emigrants from Eng- 
land. A few years later Cromwell finished 
the job and got the name of 'Thorough," 
because of his theory that the only good Irish- 
man was a dead Irishman. There were terri- 
ble religious wars in Ireland for years, each 
side getting even for outrages committed by 
the other. One great event in the series 
was the siege of Londonderry by an Irish 
army under James the Second, who had been 
run out of England by William of Orange. 
James was about to enter the city with the 
consent of the governor, when thirteen ap- 
prentice boys banged down the portcullis, 
closing the entrance. That started the fight, 
and the people of Londonderry decided to 
stand the siege. They repulsed the soldiers 
and James tried to starve 'em out. The siege, 
which began with no preparation for defense, 
lasted seven months, and half the population 
died of starvation. The people ate dogs and 
cats and rats, a rat selling for three shillings. 



THE NORTH OF IRELAND 209 

At last an English fleet broke through the ob- 
struction in the river, and the remnant of the 
people of Londonderry was saved. 



Those were "good old times." The Protest- 
ants of Londonderry knew if they surrendered 
they would meet the same fate that they had 
accorded to the Catholics on the capture of 
Irish towns, and there is hardly a town in 
Ireland which cannot duplicate the story of 
the siege of Londonderry. Those days are 
gone, Irish and English have laid aside their 
weapons, and except for St. Patrick's Day or 
the 12th of July, which is the anniversary of 
the battle of the Boyne in which William de- 
feated James, there is hardly a broken head 
in the country from religious causes. 

The walls still stand in Londonderry, and 
some of the cannon of 1689 are mounted at 
the old stand. But the walls are now a 
promenade and the cannon are only relics. 
A Protestant cathedral and a Catholic cathe- 
dral, a Presbyterian college and a Catholic 
college, are doing business side by side, and 
all are doing good. Two steamship lines have 
made Derry a regular stop on their way from 



210 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

Glasgow to America. The principal busi- 
ness of the town is the manufacture of linen 
and whisky, most of which is exported to the 
United States. And Irishmen from the North 
of the isle, who want an opportunity and a 
chance, come to Derry on their way to the 
best land of all, discovered by the Spanish, 
developed by the English, and ruled gener- 
ally by the Irish, known and loved as home 
now by more Irish than are in Ireland, the 
XL S. A. 



Scotland and the Scotch 

Glasgow, Scotland, September 7. 
Scotland is one of the oldest countries of the 
civilized world. Although it is now united 
with England and is a part of Great Brit- 
ain, up to two hundred years ago it had noth- 
ing to do with the English except to fight 
them. The original inhabitants were Celts, 
and came into history as Picts and Scots, who 
held possession of the northern part of the 
country when the Romans conquered Eng- 
land. After the Romans went away the 
Saxons arrived and practically wiped out all 
the old Britons in England, but made no head- 
way against the Caledonians or "people of 
the hills," as they called the residents of the 
north. About the ninth century the various 
tribes were gotten together under one chief 
or king, and from that time until the union of 
England and Scotland in 1706 the chief oc- 
cupation of the Scotch was to fight the Eng- 
lish, who were always trying to conquer Scot- 
land, but never succeeding. The Scotch and 

(211) 



212 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

the English were of different race, language, 
customs and habits. Much of Scotland, the 
Highlands, has little room for agriculture, and 
the people lived a roving life, raising a few 
sheep and oats, and, whenever they felt like 
it, making a raid into the Lowlands and into 
England and bringing back cattle and supplies 
to last them until the next raid. They were 
converted to Christianity, but their idea of 
morality never included an injunction against 
killing the Lowlander and running off his 
herd. War was the name under which nations 
concealed their crimes of robbery, and the 
Highlanders of Scotland had war all the 
time ; so they were officially justified. When 
you analyze their romantic history and the 
great deeds of their heroes you will always 
find that no matter how strict their character 
and honor among themselves, they never con- 
sidered it anything but a praiseworthy action 
to kill and rob an Englishman. The reforma- 
tion by John Knox and his contemporaries 
filled the Scottish heads with religious en- 
thusiasm and devotion, but it did not inter- 
fere with the Scottish theory that the English 
were the natural enemy who must always be 



SCOTLAND AND THE SCOTCH 213 

fought. And the English, on their side, recip- 
rocated the regard in which they were held 
by the Scotch, and every king of England who 
had a chance put in his time trying to conquer 
the clansmen. Often the English would de- 
feat the Scotch armies and capture their 
chiefs, but they couldn't any more hold the 
Scotch territory than they could hold the red- 
hot end of a poker. 

When Elizabeth, Queen of England, died, 
the next heir to the English throne was the 
son of Mary, Queen of Scots, then reigning as 
James the Sixth, King of Scotland. He was 
not only the heir, but he was a Protestant, 
and was, therefore, acceptable, and he was 
duly crowned as James the First of England. 
Of course, he went to London to reside, and 
from that time to the present England and 
Scotland have had the same king, although it 
was 100 years later before there was anv union 
of the two governments. In 1706 the Scottish 
Parliament adopted the act of union, the ma- 
jority being secured by shameful and open 
bribery and against the protests of the Scot- 
tish people, who did not want to be the tail 



214 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 



of the English kite. But the union resulted 
very beneficially to Scotland, as it changed 
the occupation from war to commerce and 
from raising hell to raising sheep. The natural 
shrewdness of the Celt was stimulated by the 
industry required in a country where hard 
work is necessary, and all over the world 
Scotchmen are known for their ability, their 
keenness in argument, their thrift and their 
success. Scotland is as far north as Labra- 
dor and Hudson Bay. It has a short grow- 
ing season and very little fertile soil. I am 
wearing an overcoat and shivering with cold. 
That kind of a country raises sturdy and 
energetic people. 



iniiimmmminramt 



It has rained every day and nearly all the 
time since we arrived. The Scotch do not 
seem to mind the wet, but go about their 
business, clad in rough, warm clothing. I had 
quite a talk with a bright old Scotchman, and, 
after I had admitted — just as well give in to a 
Scotchman without argument — that Scotland 
was the most beautiful country on earth, I 
started a diversion by asking him if it rained 
all the time in Scotland. In very broad dia- 



SCOTLAND AND THE SCOTCH 215 

lect he said he would tell us a story that would 
answer the question. A ship arrived off the 
Scotch coast, and, as it was raining, the cap- 
tain decided to delay landing until the storm 
was over. He waited three weeks before the 
rain stopped, but finally the sun came out 
and he put for the shore. Just as he climbed 
onto the land the sky darkened and the rain 
began to fall again. Of a Scotch lad standing 
by, the captain asked: "Does it rain all the 
time in Scotland?" 

"Naw," said the lad; "sometimes it 
snaws." 

The agricultural products of Scotland are 
oats, grass, barley, and a little wheat. The 
farms are generally small and the soil poor, 
and the great industry is the raising of sheep. 
In the manufacturing towns the wool is made 
into cloth. The chief industry, aside from 
this, is <bhe distillery, and a great deal of the 
product is consumed at home. The people 
are poor, and there is little chance for them to 
improve their condition and stay in Scotland. 
The land is owned by big landlords, and hun- 
dreds of square miles are kept for hunting by 



216 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

the proprietors of the estates. Work as hard 
as he may, the Scotch tenant farmer has very 
little ahead of him except poverty and heaven. 
The tourists bring a good deal of money to the 
country, and are separated from it in every 
way the canny Scot can devise. But in spite 
of poverty and notwithstanding the evil of 
intemperance, there is no doubt of the natural 
brightness of the Scotch. 



I had heard all my life of the Scotch heather, 
and it is one thing in which I was not disap- 
pointed. The Scotch moor, which is something 
between a barren field and a swamp, will raise 
nothing else, and most of Scotland is moor. 
Heather is like a weed cedar, if there could be 
such a thing, and at this season, when it is in 
bloom, covers the ground with a mat of blue. 
There is also a white heather, which is rare 
and to find which is good luck. I was very 
fortunate, for I picked a bunch of white 
heather the first attempt. I picked it from 
a lad for a penny, and I recommend that way 
of hunting for the white kind. But the blue 
heather is everywhere, as buffalo-grass used 
to be on western prairies. Heather is good 



SCOTLAND AND THE SCOTCH 217 

for nothing, except as a flower, and it will not 
grow anywhere but in Scotland. It is like 
the hills and woods and lakes of this country 
— fair to look upon but not convertible into 
cash. It is worn by the people, and a man is 
hardly dressed up unless he has a bunch in his 
cap or his button-hole. The shamrock will 
not grow except in Ireland and the heather 
only in Scotland, and each is held in loving 
affection by the people of the country be- 
cause of its constancy and patriotism. 



The Scotch have a way of making oatmeal 
porridge that justifies its reputation. But I 
tried the "haggis," and once was enough. I 
do not know what the component elements of 
Scotch "haggis" may be, but I suspect that 
they are the remnants of the last meal minced 
together, with oatmeal and sheep-blood added 
to make them palatable. The Scotch people 
are not high livers. Whatever cannot be 
made out of oats and mutton is too high- 
priced for the ordinary citizen. The farm- 
house is generally divided by a solid wall, the 
family on one side and the cows and sheep 
on the other. The people of Scotland always 



218 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

have been poor, and they are not ashamed of 
it; but they consider it disgraceful to be 
ignorant or irreligious, so they have as good 
schools and churches as can be found any- 
where outside of America. The men no 
longer go around with guns and plaids, calling 
themselves by the names of their clans, but 
there is much family pride, and the traditions 
of the good old times of murder and robbery 
are kept in mind. The English language has 
taken the place of the old Gaelic for general 
use, but the English as spoken in Scotland is 
only about second cousin to the English 
language as known in Kansas. 

Walter Scott wrote the history of Scotland 
for the world, and it is very fortunate for the 
clansmen that he did. Scott had a picturesque 
way of dressing up the costume and character 
of a dirty highwayman so that he would ap- 
pear to be the soul of honor and the pride of 
chivalry. He has given some of the kings 
and dukes, who committed every crime from 
arson to murder, the reputation and standing 
of good and respectable citizens. His his- 
torical novels, in so far as their description 
of royal character is concerned, have the merit 



SCOTLAND AND THE SCOTCH 219 

of beauty and interest, but not of truth. The 
Scots were fierce fighters, and in the days 
when war meant conquest and conquest 
meant pillage the Scots were unexcelled in all 
lines. Now that the world is putting up a 
different standard for success we find the 
Scotchmen adapting themselves to modern 
ideas ; and in science, invention, law and com- 
merce they can show down with any lot of 
people twice their size on earth. They are 
proud of their country, and can recite its 
legends and its poems of Burns even if they 
are so poor that they don't have a square meal 
a day. They love to argue, state their views 
positively, contradict flatly, and do not object 
to taking as good as they send. They are not 
polite like the Germans, insinuating like the 
French, or reserved like the English. They 
are abrupt and inconsiderate, though kind- 
hearted and helpful, proud and poor, quick- 
witted and industrious. If they had any 
other country's natural advantages they would 
own the earth. 



The Land of Burns 

Ayr, Scotland, September 9. 
Today we have spent in Ayr, the village 
which bases a claim on fame because in a 
humble little cottage, just outside its limits, 
Robert Burns, the great Scottish poet, was 
born. I call Burns "the great Scottish poet" 
because it is right that his beloved country 
should be linked with his name, but, as a 
matter of fact, Burns is the poet of humanity 
in every land and every clime. His writings 
jingle like a familiar song, his thoughts are 
the thoughts we all think but cannot express, 
and his music touches the heartstrings like 
recollections of childhood, a letter from home, 
or the memory of those who are dear and 
away. Burns wrote in rhyme the thoughts 
that came themselves and not thoughts he 
had worked up for the occasion. A child of 
poverty himself, he was neither blinded to its 
troubles nor overcome by its restrictions, and 
he tells us of the joys and pleasures, the griefs 
and sorrows of the people. He puts epigrams 

(220) 



THE LAND OF BURNS 221 

into verse and he tells of things as they are, 
looking through the shams and deceits and 
making good-natured fun of weakness and 
folly. He never gets away from the human 
interest and he never fails in knowledge of 
human nature. 

Burns's father was a farmer, and not a very 
successful one. He spelled his name Burness, 
but for some unknown reason the poet short- 
ened it. The father was an honest and re- 
ligious man who was highly respected, but 
never made good in a business way. His 
mother was brighter, and used to sing Scotch 
songs and ballads, and if there is anything in 
heredity Robert got his poetic instincts from 
that side of the house. They were trying to 
make a nursery pay when Robert was born, 
and I visited the cottage where that event 
took place. One end of the shanty with three 
rooms was for the family and the other with 
two rooms was for the cattle. The Burnses 
failed in the nursery business, and rented a 
small farm near by, on which Robert spent 
his boyhood days, not far from the taverns 
in Ayr and Irvine, where he learned how to be 



222 A JA-YHAWKER IN EUROPE 

a "good fellow" and thus shortened his life. 
He was 15 years old when he wrote his first 
verses, and was helping on the farm and going 
to school. After the father died Robert and 
his brother tried to run the farm, but the poet 
got discouraged, and decided to emigrate to 
Jamaica. A publisher printed his poems, and 
he intended to take the money he received for 
them to pay his passage. But the book made 
a hit from the start, a second edition was 
called for, and Burns at once attained great 
popularity. He gave up the idea of leaving 
Scotland, and put in most of the remainder of 
his days writing, besides holding a small job 
which his friends got for him, in the revenue 
service. He bought a farm near Dumfries, 
and lived there and in the town the rest of his 
short life, for he died in 1796, when he was 
only 37 years of age. 

Burns not only enjoyed popularity in his 
own generation, but in the more than a 
century since he wrote his fame has grown 
steadily and his genius and talent are ap- 
preciated in every part of the world. There 
are statues and monuments to Burns all over 
Scotland, but the greatest memorial is in the 



THE LAND OF BURNS 223 



hearts of the people of his own country and 
of all others into which his songs have gone. 
Wherever there is a son or daughter of Scot- 
land there is a lover of "Bobby Burns." 



juummiiunanu.'inr 



It was a little thrilling to be shown the inn 
where "Tarn O'Shanter" loitered that stormy 
night in Ayr — 

"Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses, 
For honest men and bonnie lasses." 

It will be remembered that Tarn and his 
crony, Souter Johnny, (both honored by 
statues now,) had spent the evening most 
merrily, and it came time for Tarn to go home 
to his wife, who had frequently told Tarn 
what would happen to him after one of those 
sprees. And the poet philosophizes : 

"Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet 
To think how mony counsels sweet, 
How mony lengthen'd s»ge advices, 
The husband frae the wife despises!" 

Tarn started for home on his good gray 
mare, Meg, but when he reached old Alloway 
Church he saw lights, and, made brave by the 
Scotch whisky, he boldly looked in. He saw 
the witches dancing, the devil playing the 
fifes, and a young woman he knew was in the 



224 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

carousal. Tarn foolishly called, the lights 
went out, and it was up to Meg to get away 
from the swarm of witches who came in hot 
pursuit. The leading lady of the gang was 
right upon poor Tarn when he came to the 
bridge, his hope of escape, for witches cannot 
cross running water. With one great jump 
Meg saved her master. 

"Ane spring brought off her master, hale. 
But left behind her ain grey tail; 
The carlin claught her by the rump, 
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump." 

I have seen the tavern, the church, the 
bridge, the statue of Tarn, but a grateful 
public has forgotten to properly commemorate 
the services of Meg and the sacrifice of the 
tail. 

Across the river Ayr are "the auld brig" 
and "the new brig" which held a joint debate 
as reported by Burns's muse. The city 
council was recently about to take down the 
auld brig because it was unsafe, but a general 
howl went up, and the bridge is to be pre- 
served. All of the relics of Burns are being 
taken care of, and so far as possible the old 
cottage and other places connected with his 
life are restored to the condition they were in 
when Burns was plowing and quit work to 



THE LAND OF BURNS 225 

write poetry to a mouse he had stirred out of 
its nest. I can readily understand why Burns 
did not make a success as a farmer, for like 
other poets he did not like to work. However, 
the dislike for work is not confined to poets, 
who have more of an excuse for this fault than 
the rest of us. 



■HDHH 



I have not yet found a Scotchman who can- 
not quote Burns's poetry by the yard. It is 
all I can do to read most of Burns's lines, and 
the words I skip often look rough and jagged. 
But when a Scotchman recites Burns, the 
dialect and the broad accent make the rhymes 
sound like music. The strange syllables fit 
together in harmony so that one can under- 
stand that Burns knew what he was about 
when he used the local phrases and words in so 
much of his writing. Burns was a good 
scholar, and could and did write the purest of 
English, but he took the homely phrases of 
the Scottish life to make the common things 
he writes about ring clear and right. 

Ayr is about forty miles from Glasgow. As 
soon as you leave the Burns neighborhood you 



£26 A JAYHAWXER IN EUROPE 



get into a country of coal mines, factories, and 
golf links. There are miles of golf grounds on 
the moors along the road. Most of the land 
is only fit to raise heather and lose golf balls. 
No wonder Burns's father failed and Robert 
was going to emigrate. The more I see of 
Scottish soil the more I take off my hat to 
the Scotch farmers, who must be the bravest 
men in the world. 



jiiiHHfljiiniiiiiiiuntt 



About fifty years ago Andrew Carnegie, 
then a lad of a half-dozen years, took his 
father by the hand and led him onto the ship 
at Glasgow which brought them to America. 
In all the Scotch towns there are Carnegie 
libraries and other benefactions from the 
Scotch boy. His shrewdness and industry 
are the result of Scotch character when given 
full play in an open field. On the other hand, 
Burns with his talent and his weakness ex- 
hibits another result of the sentimental yet 
canny Scot who sees through humanity and 
analyzes it. 

To read the poetry of Robert Burns is to 
be wiser, better and happier. The day spent 
in this little nook in which he began his life 



THE LAND OF BURNS 227 

has brought much of Burns's surroundings 
vividly to my mind. The little hovel in 
which he was born contrasts with the great 
monument reared by a grateful country, and 
proves his words if they needed proof : 

"A king can make a belted knight, 
A marquis, duke, and a' that, 
But an honest man's aboon his might, 
Guid faith, he mauna fa' that 
For a' that and a' that, 

Their dignities and a' that, 
The pith of sense and pride o' worth, 
Are higher rank, than a' that." 



Steamship Cameronia, September 21. 
For some unexplainable reason the ship 
homeward-bound is always slow. When one 
leaves his own country on a journey to other 
lands he is in no hurry. The new pictures 
that constantly present themselves, the new 
objects and the talk that suggests new ideas, 
hopes and plans, make the days go swiftly 
by and the voyage is never too long or tire- 
some. But when months of travel have ex- 
hausted the appetite for sights, and the oc- 
currence of the strange no longer starts a 
thrill, the thoughts of the traveler far exceed 
the speed of the ship and the fastest boat that 
crosses the Atlantic is too slow. This is the 
only excuse I can find for the Cameronia, 
which sailed four days later than scheduled, 
and has developed no traits which will be 
affectionately remembered by the present pas- 
sengers. She is a new ship, and not finished. 
I suppose the Anchor line needed the money 
or it would not have started a vessel across 

(228) 



THE JOURNEY'S END 229 



the ocean with so many things not com- 
pleted and untried. And then the Cam- 
eronia has shown great ability as a pitcher, 
also as a roller, and if a contest is begun as 
to what ship can pitch and roll, kick and 
buck and snort the best, I will back the 
Cameronia against the field. 



The ocean along the northern coast of Ire- 
land has a habit of being busy. The currents 
from the south and the Arctic meet the tur- 
bulent waves from the Irish Sea, and a watery 
Donnybrook fair is the result. The Cam- 
eronia enjoyed the opportunity, and although 
the passengers generally took their evening 
meal a majority of them went dinnerless to 
bed, and they went early and with much haste. 
There is no known remedy for seasickness. 
The Rockefeller foundation which is discover- 
ing wonderful germs, on which every other 
ill can be laid, has not found the bacillus 
which started the trouble on the Cameronia. 
The ship's doctor calmly advises you to put 
your finger down your throat and aid nature 
in her work. He assures you that the disease 
is not fatal, although you may wish it were, 



230 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

and he encourages you in the faith that every 
minute will be your next. The seasick ones 
lose temporarily any other trouble or ail- 
ments, and often forget their own names, 
imagining probably that these have gone with 
the rest. The story is told of a time like the 
one in question, that a sympathizing officer 
came to a man and woman who were leaning 
against each other with a common misery. 
"Is your husband very sick?" he inquired 
of the evidently cultured and modest lady 
"He's not my husband," she faintly answered, 
as she leaned on her companion once again. 
'Your brother?" continued the butter-in. 
"I never saw him before," she murmured, 
clasping again at the wobbly supporter under 
discussion. 



HIIIINIIIUEllUlllimilt 



This is a Scotch boat, and she has some 
Scotch traits. The Scotch people are won- 
derful. In a land which is nearly all poor 
pasture and good golf links, they have de- 
veloped a citizenship which intellectually leads 
the world. But they are not given to cover- 
ing up unpleasant spots and they do not go 
too strong for things of mere beauty or com- 



THE JOURNEY'S END 231 

fort. There is no blarney-stone in the High- 
lands. The Scotch are probably the poorest 
hotel managers in the world. The graces and 
the pleasantry of the continent are despised, 
and everything coming to a Scotchman is 
expected on the day it is due. This habit 
of thrift is necessary in a land where it has 
always been a fight for man to get a result 
in the way of bread or meat or porridge. 
There is little humor in the Scotch nature, 
and every action is based on serious thought. 
The Cameronia is getting us across just as 
was promised, but with no frills or furbelows 
in the way of personal attention or enter- 
tainment. 



iiiiiiimuoumiiiiiic 



Of course there is a great deal in their view- 
point, and what seems right and proper in 
one country is often looked upon with horror 
in another. Sunday on the Cameronia was 
Sunday as it is in Glasgow. The Anchor line 
would no more sail a ship without divine 
service than it would without a rudder. It 
would no more permit the pianist to play 
secular music like "America" or "Swanee 
River" on Sunday than it would allow a pas- 



232 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

senger to take the captain's place. But all 
the Sabbath Day the Anchor line sells booze 
openly and without a compunction of con- 
science. A compulsorily closed piano and an 
open bar look strange from the viewpoint of 
a traveler from Kansas. 



SBOllDRHatSltllBUS 



I do not want to seem to be faultfinding, 
so I will only say that the grand concert on 
the Cameronia was not much worse than is 
usual on shipboard. Everybody knows that 
during a voyage some night is designated as 
concert night, a program is given by the pas- 
sengers, and a collection taken for the bene- 
fit of the Sailors' Home or some such charitable 
object. But only those who have actually 
made the trip and attended a concert realize 
the painful nature of the operation. A no- 
tice is posted on the bulletin board asking 
for volunteers for the program, and aspiring 
genius directly or through friends offers it- 
self for the entertainment. A dignified gen- 
tleman who can't tell a funny story but thinks 
he can is selected for chairman. Sometimes 
a really good musician or entertainer is in- 
advertently included in the program, but this 



THE JOURNEY'S END 233 

is not often. No mistake is made in the choice 
of pretty girls who take up the collection. 
Our concert was opened by a bass solo, the 
guilty party being a man with his name 
parted in the middle and old enough to know 
better. He rendered (that's the proper word) 
the old Roman favorite, "Only a Pansy Blos- 
som." When he came to the chorus about 
a faded flower he waved a yellow chrysanthe- 
mum in the air to a tremulo accompaniment. 
This was not a comic song, but a serious, 
sentimental selection, and the singer was an 
Englishman. The Scotch and English in the 
room heaved sighs and said to each other, 
"How beautiful!" The Americans poked 
each other in the ribs and almost wept in the 
effort to restrain their laughter. Of course 
he was encored, and he rendered again. 
This time it was a ballad about the golden 
tress of my darling, and in the touchiest of 
the touching lines he drew forth from his 
vest a piece of female switch, peroxide in 
color and horsetailish in effect. It was a 
great effort, and the serious fellow-country- 
men heaved more sighs of appreciation, while 
an American girl at my right whispered out 



234 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

of her handerchief, "I know I'm going to 
scream!" Then a Scotchman sang an Irish 
song. Now a Scotchman can't get the Irish 
brogue any more than he can understand an 
American joke. He was enthusiastically en- 
cored, and responded with a French dialect 
story, in broad Scotch. It was funnier than 
he knew. An amateur violinist contributed 
an execution of a sonata or a nocturne or a 
cordial of some kind. A famous story-teller 
recited a few choice bits from the column of 
some London magazine, on which the Amer- 
ican copyright expired many years ago. The 
chairman in a few touching words then ex- 
plained the object of the charity for which 
the fund was to be collected, and the touch- 
ing was completed by the young ladies with 
pleasant smiles. 

Such is a ship's concert, and with slight va- 
riations it is one of the features of every 
ocean voyage. 



nuiiiiimoiiiiiimiic 



I have alluded to the lack of humor in 
Great Britain, from the American viewpoint. 
I heard a good joke on the Scotch, and told 
it to a small crowd in the smoking-room. 
The story was of the boy who asked his father 




INTRODUCING A JOKE TO OUR BRITISH COUSINS 



THE JOURNEY'S END 235 

why there was such a coin as a farthing, the 
fourth part of a penny. The father replied 
that it was to enable the Scotch to be chari- 
table. Nobody laughed, and I resumed a 
discussion of the weather. About five min- 
utes afterward an Englishman roared with 
mirth, and shouted to me, "I follow you! I 
follow you!" I didn't understand why he 
was following me until he began my story, 
which he repeated with explanations and re- 
minders of the proverbial Scotch thrift. Then 
he told it again and laughed loudly. The 
others smiled courteously and then face after 
face broadened, they all "followed," and no- 
body appreciated the joke more than the 
Scotchmen. They told the story to each 
other and laughed, then hunted up friends 
and told it until the friends "followed," and 
I was pointed out as a humorist. But it 
was a long and painful operation, and I did 
not have the courage to try it again. These 
British cousins are not devoid of humor but 
their speed limit is far below ours. 



jKiiiimmnimiiLtimt 



The harbor of New York is in sight and the 
pilot just came aboard. I witnessed an affect- 



236 A JAYHAWKER IN EUROPE 

ing scene. A. fellow-passenger shouted vig- 
orously to get the attention of a man who was 
sitting in the pilot boat. The man looked 
up, and I could tell the passenger was ner- 
vously preparing to ask for important news, 
perhaps of the strike, or the English elections. 
He called, "Who's ahead in the National 
League?" 

No coast looks as beautiful as the shore of 
home. Even New Jersey looms magnifi- 
cently at such a time. The passengers are 
all on deck except those who are hiding articles 
from the customs officer. The returning 
Americans are full of enthusiasm. They have 
seen enough of other lands to know that there 
is none to compare with the United States, 
none which comes nearer to giving a man a 
chance. The foreigners in the first cabin 
watch the approaching scene with quiet in- 
terest. Over in the steerage hundreds of 
would-be Americans gaze eagerly at the land 
of hope and promise. Soon they will be 
welcomed by the Statue of Liberty which holds 
out the torch of citizenship to every alien with 
ten dollars in cash and a certificate of health. 



the journey's end 1 37 

The American flag appears on passing boats, 
and it is the most beautiful as it is the most 
meaning of all the ensigns of all the nations. 
A man with a German accent tells me how 
forty years ago, when a mere boy, he came 
from the fatherland to try his fortune in the 
New World. This year he went back for a 
visit, but he had a stateroom and was not 
in the steerage. He saw the struggle and the 
lack of opportunity in the country of his 
birth. Now he is homeward-bound, satis- 
fied that in spite of trusts and politics and 
coon songs, this is really the land of the free, 
the nation of opportunity ; and as the pilot 
took charge and the American flag went to 
the top of the Cameronia's mast, . a tear 
trickled down his cheek, telling of the joy 
in his heart. 



)EC 11 191 






One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



If 



OtC 11 1911 
DFC 23 



